


You Take the Bitter with the Sweet

by OurImpavidHeroine



Series: The Abdication of Hou-Ting LIV or: How Wu Learned to Stop Being Foolish and Love the Detective [18]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Non-Comic Compliant, Other, Polyamory, Post-Canon, Post-Series, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-01 01:25:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 45,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13987452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OurImpavidHeroine/pseuds/OurImpavidHeroine
Summary: Mako is stressed at work, so Wu asks Qi to take him away for the weekend. Nothing is lost, but many things are found.





	1. Chapter 1

“Qi, my darling, do you think I could ask you for a small favor?”

Now let me make something real clear here: Wu doesn’t actually ask for favors. Or make suggestions, neither. He just tells you what he wants and stands there, with that same polite little smile he was making at me, expecting you to get on with doing whatever it is he wants.

I tell you this with love, mind. You know I love the man. So I didn’t laugh the way I wanted to and instead said, “What can I do you for?”

“Well, it’s about Mako.” He frowned, tapping at his chin. “It’s...well. Have you noticed that he’s been under a slight bit of strain at work lately?”

Notice? If you call him ripping me a new one the other night because I had the apparent sass to venture an opinion on the Ba Sing Se Badgermoles’ alternate firebender a sign of stress then sure, I’ve noticed. I just grunted back at Wu, though.

“Yes, well. I’m not altogether sure what the problem is since he refuses to discuss it,” an even mightier frown at that, “but I do wish you’d do something about it.”

“What? You want me to beat it out of him?”

That got me one of those little prissy-mouthed glares of his. Always makes me want to kiss him when he does that. Sorry to say he’s usually not in the mood for kissing when he makes it, though. “I should say not. Honestly, Qi, I am trying to be serious here!”

“Yeah, okay, sorry. Sure, I’ve noticed he seems pretty stressed out. I don’t know what you want me to do about it, though.”

“Hmmm,” he said, back to tapping at his chin. Now we were going to get into what he was going to call “a favor” but what was really a “Qi do this right now” kind of deal.

“Spit it out, then.”

Another glare. “I was just thinking that perhaps a relaxing weekend away might do the trick. A bit of a refresher, as it were.”

A bit of a refresher. Like the man was a glass of lemonade. “Take him somewhere for the weekend, then. Take him to that place down the coast, the two of you are always going on about that place.”

“I can’t. I have that terribly important meeting with the city planner first thing Monday morning about the Spring Festival and I have two meetings over the weekend to prepare for it.”

“Right, right.” I pretended to think for a moment. “What about next weekend?”

He put his hand on his hip and sighed, looking at me like I was the world’s greatest disappointment to him. I probably shouldn’t rile him up the way I do but between you, me and the wall the more snippy he gets the more flat out adorable he gets, or at least in my opinion anyhow. I don’t know what to tell you about it. “The point, Qi, is that you could take him this weekend.”

There’s a thin line between Wu getting snippy and Wu having a tantrum and I was skating that line. “Fine,” I told him. “I’ll take him to the lodge.” I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do with him up there but I wasn’t about to ask Wu. His idea of a diverting time - as he likes to call it - is to let fish eat his toes or to drink champagne while discussing the latest cover of Snazzy magazine. Not really Mako’s style. Or mine.

I went and hit up LoLo for some food to take up there and packed myself a bag. I debated for a minute; we might have maids and the like always underfoot but Mako’s a private man and I didn’t want to get into his business. Eventually I went and flagged down the family’s new valet and told him what I was about and he helped me put a bag together for him. Wu liked the old valet but he had some pretty strong issues with me going from the help to the spouse-to-be, and once LoLo caught wind of it he fired him in a red hot minute. LoLo doesn’t put up with that kind of thing, not at all. He runs a tight ship. The new one is a nice enough man; older, professional, knows what he’s doing, keeps things running smoothly in the family wardrobe, that kind of thing. Kind of ridiculous on the face of it; one person, in charge of nothing but our clothes and such? But Wu once told me that his great-aunt the Queen had something like twenty people seeing only to her, so I guess one for the entire family isn’t such a big deal for a prince. Also, I’m not complaining that someone else is doing my mending and ironing, because I purely hate doing it myself.

I took a cab downtown and cooled my heels around the station, waiting for him; he was surprised to see me and more than a little pissy about it when I told him I was taking him away for the weekend. (Chiyo, his partner, threw me a wink, though.) We loaded up his car and headed on out, right then and there. I’ll lay yuan the Butterfly is going to pitch a squawky fit when she hears we’ve gone without her but Wu can handle her. It was his idea, after all.

He started to relax on the drive up, though. I told him that chat about work and the upcoming wedding were off the table; this was supposed to be a fun weekend, no deep thoughts. He shot me a look at that, but didn’t say anything for a couple of minutes before bringing up pro-bending, which is a subject the man waxes passionately about, no great surprise. Luckily I enjoy it as well, so I was game for that topic. Wei’s been training hard, and his coach told him he can try out at the end of the season for his old spot. I hope he gets it. He’s been doing so much better I’m more than a little scared about what it might do to him if he doesn’t. But hey! None of that this weekend. Fun only.

We got up there pretty quickly as these things go; Mako knows the way by now and what with all the people coming in and out to work on the place itself the little stretch of road past the last farmhouse has actually been made into something you can drive on. It used to be more of a grassy path than a road, if you catch my meaning. The last time we were all up together Korra and Bolin took it upon themselves to stand on the hood of Mako’s car while he drove them slowly along in reverse as they bent it into shape. We could hear the two of them whooping it up together a mile off, they were having themselves quite the little soiree, as Wu would say. That was one fuck of a weekend, let me tell you. Let’s just say that it’s hard to be awestruck by the idea of the one and only Avatar when she’s had a little too much fire whiskey and decides to stick a two hundred year old boar-q-pine head on top of her own and chase folks about your living room. I don’t want to go into the hangovers we all woke up with. LoLo was still in such a sorry state when we brought him home that Lin ripped several strips off my and Mako’s hides about it. I still hold she was just riled up because she didn’t want to go and missed out on all the fun. It’s not like we lost him and he got another tattoo on his ass or something.

The farmer’s oldest son saw us coming and jogged over to say hello, told me his Ma had been by a few days prior to check in on the place, handed over a basket of summer apples and gave his regards to the family. His Ma goes up there once a week to make sure all is well. They’re real nice folks there, good neighbors, for sure. I had a survey team come up some months back to make sure I knew where the property lines were and it turned out a part of their farm was on my land; when they found out they tried to pay me for it but I don’t need their money. No need for those folks to be in debt to me. Better they keep the land and make use of it, so I signed it over to them. I’d been paying them before to keep an eye on the place and give me fresh vegetables and such, but now they insist on doing it for free and I let them, fair’s fair. Like I said, real nice folks.

By the time we drove up the driveway it was pretty dark even with the headlights; Mako had one arm out his window so he could light up the stables when we parked. He told me to stay put while he went to crank up the generator I’ve got out there. Without it there’s no light but starlight and moonlight, it’s dark as anything. One more way you know you’re nowhere near a city. Once the lights flickered and sputtered on we dragged our stuff inside. I thought we’d maybe see about a small meal or a bath or something, but the man had his arms around me and me up against the wall before I could so much as blink. Well, anything in the name of relaxation, right? Didn’t even make it hardly past the front door and it was one of those quick and hard fucks that don’t let you even get all your clothes off never mind try to take your time but he made me holler, oh yes he did, and when he’d finished he was in a much better mood, gave my bare ass a happy little slap and asked me if we had any whiskey. Get your own whiskey, boy, I’m just going to sit down here and catch my breath. Spirits alive but the man can fuck like a house afire. Not that I’m complaining, mind. Because I’m not. But give a body a minute to recover, is all I’m saying.

That’s exactly what he did, too...shucked off the rest of what he still had on and walked naked as the day his Mama birthed him into my cellar, rooted around until he found what he wanted, headed back upstairs, said hello to Marezelle, the little spirit who lives here, and sat himself down on one of my sofas, taking a pull out of the bottle and patting his lap for me. “C’mere,” he said, and you can bet I did.

Wu’s a modest man; he’s shy and covers himself up as much as possible. Kind of funny for a man that writes smut the way he does, eh? But Mako, he’s got no concern about it and neither do I. I spent my first years in a whorehouse. Clothing was mostly optional, if you follow. So I sat down on his lap and he handed me the bottle and then took the rest of my things off before wrapping his arms around me, making some of the little grunty noises he makes when he’s pleased with life.

“Better?” I asked and he took another hit off the bottle and smiled down at me, all lazy and content. Sometimes he reminds me of nothing more than a big old cat. Pet him and he’ll purr. Course when he’s put out he’ll take a swipe at you, but that’s cats for you. You take the bitter with the sweet, just like Mako.

“Yeah,” he answered, and slid himself down on the sofa, taking me with him. “Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me, thank Wu. He’s the one who suggested it.”

“Well, I will. But right now I’m thanking you.”

“Don’t be making a mess on my nice new sofa with your thanks, old son.”

He laughed at that. “Nice thought, but I’m not seventeen any longer. I need a little more time before I’m up for any mess making.”

I snorted. “Whatever you say.” He laughed again, running his fingers through my hair, moving his leg to trap mine between his.

“This is nice,” he sighed, and I agreed. I like him when he’s like this, all warm and relaxed and smiling. The man’s so het up most of the time that this Mako is hardly around. I know a lot of it is his work. We aren’t meant to talk about it this weekend and I won’t, but he comes home tense, tired, snappy. Just last week he barked at poor Zhi, the boy sobbing for an hour, Mako apologizing over and over; he felt awful about it, plain to see. I know he doesn’t want to be shouting at his babies like that. But I’m the wrong person to ask, I guess. Republic City’s the only home I’ve ever known, and I love it, but it’s a shithole too, right enough. I just don’t feel the need to fix it, like Mako does. Maybe that’s because I know better.

But never mind that. We lay there for a time, not really talking, drinking whiskey, him petting me and me going all easy with it before I got up and rummaged through the box of food LoLo sent along. Enough to feed a small navy, like he always does. I’ll drop off what we don’t eat with some of the street rats before we get home. He’d had quite a lot of whiskey by that time; the man can hold his drink, but he was getting right randy with it. We ate some and then I took the bottle and him back to my bedroom and then it was my turn to fuck him stupid up and down that great big bed until we both had enough and could drop off to sleep. I don’t know if it was what Wu was going for when he told me to help Mako relax, but it seemed to work out just fine for both of us.

Going to bed with Mako’s not the same as with Wu. Wu’s still nervous around my body. It hurts me some. I know he’s not meaning to do it; Wu is Wu and spirits know the man can get a stick up his ass but he’s not trying to hurt me. He does seem to enjoy kissing me and holding me, but he can’t seem to quite get past what I’m missing, if you follow. Truth be told, my body never really bothered me before, but it’s bothering me now, or at least when it comes to him. I don’t know. I guess I have to sit down and talk to him about it but I’m dreading it. For his sake and for mine.

Mako, though. Different story. He took me surfing about a week after he did for me the first time at Yumi’s dojo and when we were taking a break, sitting on the beach, he started asking me questions. Mako style, you know? He’s blunt and to the point and while I know that bothers some, I prefer it. The man likes to make sure he’s got a full understanding of things. Asked me right out if I considered myself a male or a female, listened to me tell him that sometimes it was both or one or the other, or maybe neither one. He kept quiet, let me speak, just asked when he needed some clearing up. He asked me about sex, too, told me he didn’t want to be treating me like a woman if I wasn’t feeling that way at that particular time. I didn’t know what to say, but I think I scared the both of us a little by starting to cry. First time in my life anyone’s ever put it that way to me. I told him that I didn’t know. It’s not like I have any experience! He made me give him my word I’d keep talking to him, that I’d tell him what I wanted and what felt good to me. Let me know, no holds barred, that he’d be happy to take me any way I wanted, and that included if I wanted him to be on the receiving end, so to speak. Wasn’t exactly sure how we’d do that, but I was wondering, I can tell you that. Well, old son over here, he’s got a dirtier mind than I knew. I come home a few nights later, there’s a box on my bed, all wrapped up in bows and pretty paper, no note, and when I opened it up I found what appeared to be a pretty hefty sized prick and some leather that I figured out right quick was meant to keep it on a body.

Was I interested? Oh, I was interested. I was plenty interested. Point of fact I stood there, holding it, and I was on fucking fire. Never seen anything like it in the whorehouse I grew up in, although that don’t mean they didn’t have them. They were pretty good about keeping me away from the working areas, that’s all. I wanted nothing more than to put it on and go find him but of course everyone was home and I couldn’t. The nerve of that man! There he sat, eating his dinner, calm as you please, just like he hadn’t blown up my world.

That night he came to me, quiet in the dark, and locked my door behind him. I told him we couldn’t, what if Wu were to go to his office across the hall and heard us? He just laughed in my ear, told me not to worry, if Wu heard us then he could listen at the door and then he put the thing on me, greased it all up, lit some candles, lay back on my bed and told me he was all mine for the taking.

I took him, too. I took him slow trying to figure out what I was about and then I took him as hard as he’d ever taken me and I tell you something, it was good for the both of us. And ever since then, we just play it as it goes.

I never knew. I never knew it could be like this with someone. I figured it wasn’t for me. Sex, I mean. Or at least sex the way that would be good for me. I never thought of myself as someone who could be right in my body that way.

Wu taught me how to love, how to be in love. And I do love him, spirits know but I’m helpless in love with him. As I know he is with me, the body thing notwithstanding. But Mako, he taught me that I could be desired, and that my own desire was a right thing, good and important, too. I’ll never be able to thank him enough for that. He’s made me feel beautiful and wanted and strong and soft and powerful and even defenseless, although being that way surely does scare the shit out of me. And tonight, he was under me, the skin of his back all sweaty, lit up in the oil lamp I’ve got in here, and I was holding still inside of him, him with a stranglehold on the bedclothes, and he turned his head to the side and opened his eyes and whispered, “Please, Qi,” and it came to me, like a bolt of his own lightning, that somewhere in all of this I’d fallen in love with him as well.

Spirits help me.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A discussion about what wasn't to be discussed. A surprise.

Next morning he was still sleeping when I woke up and I left him to it. Between work and kids and everything else he never gets much of a chance. Wu once told me that Mako would sleep into the afternoon if let be and he wasn’t kidding. I was up and bathed and dressed and breakfasted with no sign of the man. I chatted with Marezelle for a bit instead. She’s shy but has gotten more comfortable with me and knows everything that’s going on, right down to the stones of the place. I took a walk around the house and the nearby grounds with her, made sure everything was spit-spot. I know the farmer and his family keep an eye out but I like knowing I’ve done a job myself.

Eventually I made my way back there to check up on him. Still sleeping; the man was curled up into himself, hair all over the place, mouth open, looking like a little baby. His Mama must have purely loved him. I think about that sometimes. I know things were real rough for him and Bolin - don’t I know, better than most! - but those first years of his, he had a Mama who loved him. He doesn’t talk about her much, but when he does, it’s clear they had a happy home. His Daddy, too. Sounds a lot like Bolin, his Daddy, but sharp like Mako. Man learned how to read and write when he came to Republic City, went from a beat-down family fruit cart in Ba Sing Se to running the market stall for the biggest grocer in town. Takes some brains and some drive to do that, and Mako got all of that in spades. I had a roof over my head and clothes on my back and food to eat my first years, and that’s no small thing where I come from. I’m grateful, I am. But I never had nobody to love me, and I don’t know if a body ever gets over that. That’s where Wu and I understand each other. Both of us little babies, looking for love.

Mako opened his eyes and blinked for a few seconds, trying to figure out where he was. It takes the man awhile to process when he wakes up. He saw me standing there, though, and I got one of those big, slow grins of his. Damn me but he always gets me with those.

“Morning,” he said, and I snorted.

“Afternoon, more like.”

“Mmmmmm,” he said, and held open his arms for me. Yeah, I hopped right up on the bed and crawled right in. I’m not passing it up. He pulled me in and nuzzled into my neck. “Smells nice,” he mumbled, hands already pulling at my shirt. “Too many clothes,” and I had to laugh. What, did you think I was going to argue? I wasn’t. We had no plans, for one thing, and for another, I’m thinking there are very few people alive that wouldn’t want to be naked in bed with the man. So I obliged him by shucking off my things and he was all over me, making sleepy happy noises this time, wrestling me around all fun-like until I took him in my mouth; things got all serious after that. The kind of serious I like, mind. The man’s got himself some magic fingers, the likes of which I’ve never seen. All that firebending, maybe. Don’t know and I don’t rightly care and neither would you if you were me and he had those fingers inside you, working away. After we were done we lay there, tangled together, sweaty and used. Happy.

“I guess I should get some breakfast,” he said, hands roaming idly down my back.

“Breakfast? It’s past lunchtime, old son. I’ve been up and busy while you were lazing away.” I kissed him so he knew I was just funnin’ with him, though.

He laughed. “A big lunch then.” Another kiss for me and he rolled over to his side. “Maybe a shower first.”

“How about lunch and then a swim in the lake?” That got me another one of those grins.

He’s so different like this, you know? It’s like he’s a changed man, good humored and fun, even. Even his body looks different when he’s relaxed. The man looks good when he smiles! I read this thing in a book about people who suffer the burden of responsibility and Mako, that’s how he lives his life. I get it, people have been depending on him since he was eight years old; his brother, Asami Sato (oh, she might like to pretend it didn’t happen but it did), Wu, now the kids...and without even meaning to, I just blurted it out.

“Why’re you doing that job if it makes you so damn unhappy all the time?”

He just stared at me. Not that I blame him, it came out of nowhere and ruined the mood. My fault.

“I...my job doesn’t make me unhappy.” Now he was frowning, back to the old Mako, as it were. Well, I’d already let my ass hang out in the wind, figured I may as well just keep going, then.

“Sure it does. I don’t know what part of it is doing it, but you’re not happy.”

A dirty look, then. “Well, I was happy until about thirty seconds ago.”

I had to give him that. “Yeah, I know, I’m the one who brought it up. Look, be pissed at me, I can’t blame you. But Mako, you’re not happy and I don’t think it's Wu or the kids or even me.”

He rubbed at his forehead. “No, of course it’s not any of you. I just…” He struggled for a minute, arguing with himself about what he was going to say. Finally he sighed, one of those great big gusters he gives out when the world is beating him down and he’s not pleased about it. “Chiyo’s leaving,” he said.

Well, slap my ass and call me Ping, first I heard of it. I sat up. “Wait, what? Since when?”

Another sigh. “Since about three months ago. She’s not quitting the force, but Song created a new job for a Head of Detectives, she’ll be working out of the office, supervising all of us. A desk job. Song’s delegating, Feng’s going to be doing the same for the beat cops. We’re finishing up loose ends together and she’ll start the beginning of next month.”

“You’ve known all this time, and you didn’t say anything? Not even to Lin?”

He shrugged. “Well, what would Lin have to do with it? It’s a good move for Chiyo, she deserves it and she’ll be damn good at the job. Anyhow, she wanted the job, she applied for it, and she was the best candidate. I think pretty much everyone in the department is pleased.”

“What does that mean for you, though?” I reached forward and tugged on his hands, taking them away from his face. “Talk to me, here.”

“They’re going to assign me a new partner. Probably one of the rookies.” Mako may not be the most expressive man in the world but I know him well enough by now to know when he isn’t happy. He was not in any way, shape or form happy about this.

“And that’s it? You’ve got no more say about it?”

He scoffed. “That’s not how it works.” He flopped over on his back and made a noise that might have been a sigh, might have been sob, was probably a little of both. “Fuck.”

It seemed pretty clear cut to me. “Well, finish up your loose ends and quit then.”

He looked up at me like I was the dumbest asshole to walk the earth. “I can’t just quit because I don’t like something.”

Now who’s the dumb asshole, hmm? “Sure you can.” I raised up a hand. “Don’t go pushing my face in it, I know you can’t quit everything you don’t like. None of us can. But your job?” I shrugged. “You don’t do it for the money, you don’t need that job. Don’t get me wrong, I know most folks have to do what they can to survive. Wasn’t my Mama a whore? I know about it. But you ain’t a whore. No one’s going to starve if you quit.” I snorted. “Point of fact, Wu would probably throw a party, he hates that job.” He had this face on him like he couldn’t decide whether or not he wanted to sneeze. That’s his thinking face. So I kept going. “Look, what do you actually like about the job? I know it’s not dealing with people once you’ve caught them, you hate that part. It’s the puzzle, that’s the part you like.”

“The puzzle,” he said. He was back to the _Qi_ _’s a dumb asshole_ look. Spirits fuck me sideways but that man is, in his own way, as condescending as Wu ever is. I’ll take if from Wu; I know he doesn’t know any better, he treats everyone that way. It’s how he was raised. Mako, though, he ought to know me better by now. Since when do I ever talk out of my ass?

“That’s what I fucking said, don’t give me that look. You ain’t that complicated a man. You like figuring things out. You’re good at it, too, I swear you can see around corners sometimes. Your mind makes patterns where everyone else finds a mess, old son, and that’s why you see what other people don’t.” I cocked my head to the side. “Come to think of it, it’s what makes you such a damn good firebender, too.”

“Not better than my daughter,” he grunted out, and I just laughed.

“Son, there ain’t nobody better than that girl, and that’s just how it is. That’s her burden to carry, not yours. Your burden is that you been so busy spending your life taking care of everybody else you have no idea what the fuck you want or need any more. If you ever did.”

He just lay there, goggling at me.

“Mako, what do you want to do? I don’t mean what do you think you should do. I mean, what do you actually want to do with your time? With your life? What makes you happy?” I gestured down at myself. “Me, I never really cared a damn about driving Wu around. I just did it because it was the one thing he needed at that very moment and I wanted to be near him, wanted to keep him safe. I wanted to be part of his world. If he’d been looking for a shoe shiner I would have done that, too. He was the thing I wanted. Now? I got him. Got myself a family, got myself financial security. I had to think about what I wanted from my life going forward, you know that’s why I was off at Lin’s place for those couple of months.”

“And?” He was clutching tight on my knee, I don’t even think he knew he was doing it.

“And I find that what I like doing is calling the shots. I like people looking to me to see what to wear. I like people coming to me and asking me what I think. I think it’s a fucking scream that people are coming to me and asking me what I think of this thing or that.” I laughed. “I ain’t that deep. I don’t want to change the world. The world can go fuck itself. That’s all it ever tried to do to me, anyhow. Me, the soon-to-be Royal Consort? On the cover of Snazzy Magazine? Society people asking me to come to their dinners and kissing my ass, copying what I’m wearing? Me? The dirty street rat who couldn’t even read, never mind figure out if they were a boy or a girl? Best job in the world.” I nudged him. “Come on. It’s a damn good joke.”

“Just a joke?” His hand started sliding back and forth, distracting me a little.

“You aren’t a joke. Or Wu or the kids or Lin or LoLo. Me being a Beifong isn’t a joke to me. It’s everything to me. Means I’m somebody. I have a name.”

“We loved you without the name. You know that, right?”

I smiled at him.  “Yeah, I know that.” And I do, too. I know they love me. Mind, I don’t know why, exactly, but I know they do. “But that’s my point. I don’t think you know what you want. You wanted enough money to be safe and comfortable with, I’m sure you did.”

“I won’t deny it.”

“No reason why you should. You’ve got that now. You already saved the world. Going around with Korra, that little business with the Colossus.”

He grinned, then. “Little?”

I cocked an eye down at his manhood, as Wu likes to call it in his books. “Yeah, not so little.” He looked pleased at this, bless the man. “Point being, you’ve got nothing to prove there. You raised your brother to be a good man, and you’re doing the same for your babies. You’re a good husband. You’re a good friend to Korra, she depends on you. Everybody knows what you’ve done for Lin.” He got a bit pink at that one, the man worships the ground Lin walks on. “So I’d say you were in the black there. You’ve been doing your best for Republic City’s police force for how many years now?”

“Fifteen years.” He kept his tone even, but I could see how his body tensed up.

“Yeah. So tell me, do you really want to have to train up some dimshit rookie? Especially with the kinds of high-profile cases Song’s been giving you lately?”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “No, I fucking do not.” His voice was shaky.

“Then tell me, old son, and tell me true. Why the fuck you doing it, then?”

He opened his eyes and caught mine. There we were, him laying on the rumpled up bed, me sitting cross-legged next to him, and I watched him as he turned it all over in his mind, the way he does. The man needs his peace to think things through, so I let him. Even though I was starting to hope for some lunch. That’ll show me not to bring up anything before I’ve eaten.

“I’m not a quitter,” he finally said, and I reached over to take his hand.

“Man tries to get through a big old brick wall with no door, slams his head into it a thousand times. Next time, he stops himself and walks away. You tell me, Mako. That man a quitter? Or did he finally use the brains in his damn head to quit causing himself more pain?”

He stared up at me for a minute before shaking his head. “You have a way of putting things.”

“Think about it. But do me a favor and think about it over some lunch, yeah? I’m starving.”

He did laugh at that, and finally hauled his carcass out of bed to go and have some lunch. Came swimming with me, too, although the water was a little cold for it and by the time we were done we were laughing between shivers and ended up racing each other back around the house to warm up. (He won; I’m quicker in a sprint but those long legs of his can set a pace I can’t keep for long.) I thought he might look for something useful to do but he surprised me; he threw on some clothes, got a fire going and parked himself on one of my sofas and demanded I read to him from the book I brought.

I haven’t been reading all that long but I practice on the regular reading storybooks to Meili so I can actually manage not to make a fool of myself when I’m reading out loud. Can’t do much about my voice - it’s never going to be anything but soft - but I don’t embarrass myself, is all I’m saying.

What I had was Wu’s latest manuscript. He’d come to me all worked up, in a dither, talking in nonsense circles the way he does when he’s nervous. Finally I told him to just spit it out; after another half hour of him doing his best poodle monkey impression he asked me if I would read it and let him know if I liked it or thought it needed any changes, that sort of thing. At first I was surprised, I’ll admit. He has an editor for his books, as far as I know he’s never asked anyone else to read them before they’re published. Not even Nuo. As I started to read it, though, I understood. It’s not so much a romance novel as it is an actual story about a noble Earth Kingdom family, set during the time of Avatar Kyoshi. I’m nothing but a street rat, so I can’t really give him notes like someone who actually knows something about books. But it’s a cracking good story. Plenty of adventure, the family is interesting to read about, there’s some romance, yes, but it isn’t the main part of the story, not by a long shot. A fair amount about politics, too. I do have some notes for him - I don’t think he really has a clue what your everyday reader might know about that time, I know he knows but most of us don’t have his education and he needs to clear some of it up - but it’s good. Really good.

I didn’t tell Mako whose book it was. I gave him a very brief rundown of what had already happened and then started to read. At first he was just laying there - I don’t think he was planning on really listening, I think he just wanted some background noise to think in, which was fine by me - but pretty soon he had perked up and was paying attention. Enough to ask me a few questions, trying to get caught up in the story.

I was just getting to a good part about this love triangle between the two brothers and the Earth King’s niece when Mako interrupted me. “Wu wrote this, didn’t he?”

I gave him a look over the top of the manuscript. “How’d you know? I didn’t think you’d read any of his books.”

He grimaced at that. “I tried _Flame of Hope_ but I just can’t keep up with that kissy kissy shit. This is different though.”

“Yeah. He’s branching out. First time, far as I know.”

He was quiet for a moment. “It sounds like him.” He waved that off. “Not like how he talks, you know how he is-” he motioned his hand into a chit-chat movement “-but more like how his mind works. I don’t know.”

I knew, though. “Yeah. When he’s being serious about something.”

“Yeah.” We sat there for a moment. “Not to mention, who the fuck else knows all about all of this stuff? Marriage customs in the Earth Kingdom three hundred years ago?”

That made me laugh. “Yeah, well. He’s specialized, for sure.”

He shifted on the sofa. “So much of that was lost, too. I don’t mean in Ba Sing Se, but the Firelords during the war mostly just burned things down. They went after libraries with a vengeance, they didn’t want people getting ideas about any other world than the one they were forcing. Tenzin told me about it, it was something that pretty much broke his father’s heart. That’s why the airbenders nowadays collect as much written material as possible. They’re making copies of it.”

“Huh,” I replied. I hadn’t realized. Truth be told, I’ve never paid all that much attention to what the airbenders do or don’t. Different for Mako, though. He lived over there for a time, is still very close to Tenzin and his family.

“Meelo’s been doing some traveling the past few years, hunting things down. I think even Ikki’s found some things up north. No thanks to the Red Lotus.” A scowl at that.

“Does Mako like old books?” Marezelle peeped out from the hallway.

Mako blinked at her. “Uh...well, some. My friend Tenzin is the one who really loves them.”

Marezelle drifted slowly into the room. “The Avatar’s son. The Avatar’s father. We know him, in our world.”

Mako smiled. “Well, the Avatar has a father, but Tenzin is like one to her, yeah.”

Marezelle didn’t acknowledge that. “Would the Avatar’s son like some old books?”

Mako and I exchanged a look. “What do you mean, Marezelle?” I put the manuscript down.

“There are books here, Qi. Old ones.”

I admit, I looked around me like they were going to appear from the air or something. “There are...what now?”

Mako leaned towards her. “What books? There were a few books here when we first came, but they were falling to pieces like everything else. We couldn’t read them.”

“No Mako, not those. The other books. And the pretty things.” She took a few timid steps forward, pointing delicately down with her pale purple paw. “The hidden ones.”

“You mean down in the cellar?” I stood up. “But we’ve cleaned it all out down there.”

“The room behind the stones,” she clarified, and then twitched her silvery whiskers. “Doesn’t Qi know about that room?”

“No. Qi does not,” I said, and raised my eyebrows at Mako, who stood up as well. “Could you show us where?”

“Of course, Qi,” she said, and sank down through the floor.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Discoveries are made!

Mako and I stood there for a moment and then he grinned and raced past me for the kitchen, where the stairs to the cellar are. I was right behind him, and followed him down the steps as he toggled on the lights. The electricity is touchy at best down there but Mako can light up a room if he needs to, so I didn’t bother with a lamp.

Marezelle was waiting for us next to the back wall where shelving had been. Most of the wood had been fairly rotten; we’d cleared it out and I’d hired the farmer’s oldest daughter to make me some new shelves. I hadn’t bothered fitting them all along the wall itself; what was the point? We’d never use all of them, they were from a time when the place had hosted Wu’s triple times great-grandfather and his court favorites. I might pack away an impressive amount of food but not enough to justify an entire wall full of supplies, that’s for damn sure.

“It’s on the other side,” she informed us, shimmering through the wall and then back through again.

Mako ran his hands along it, frowning. “About how thick would you say this wall was, Marezelle?”

Her tail twitched slowly and she scratched a paw carefully down the stone before making another one about a foot away.

“If Bolin was here he could go right through it, but I don’t know how we’re going to do it.” He surveyed the wall, thinking, slapping at it gently. “Do you have a sledgehammer or a crowbar here?”

“Uh...yeah, I think so? In the stable. Or at least that’s where all the rest of the tools are. You think a sledgehammer would break through that stone?” I was doubtful. “A foot thick?”

He grunted. “Eventually it would.” Marezelle quietly faded back through the wall again. “It’d take a long time, though. Might just be quicker to go and get Bo.” He glanced back at me. “Unless we could call him?”

I snorted. “I couldn’t even tell you where the nearest phone is. Half the places nearby don’t even have running water, never mind electricity.”

“Damn.”

We stood there together, looking at the wall. Like we were going to break it with our eyes? Mako even sort of gently kicked at it; also did nothing, surprise surprise. Stone wall, thickly mortared, with something behind it that I sure wanted to get my hands on by now. I’m not sure how long we stood there until he stirred. “So which is it? Sledgehammer or going to get my brother?”

“Or we could just leave it alone,” I teased, and he gave me a little grin at that. “Ah, I don’t know. I guess getting Bolin is a better plan, I’d be afraid we’d damage it, weaken the foundations too much or something. I know exactly zero about this kind of thing.”

“Yeah, I guess.” He shrugged. “Should we go get him now? Or do you want to...” He trailed off as a rumbling sound came up through the stones of the cellar floor, shaking the both of us hard enough to make us stagger and grab at each other. “What the fuck?” He let out with a yelp and jumped back a step; I’m not ashamed to admit I did the same.

Not every day a body sees a very small badgermole burrowing up into their cellar, after all.

“That’s a badgermole,” he hissed out of the side of his mouth, never taking his eyes off of it, still hanging off of me.

“No shit,” I said, backing up until I bumped into the wall. “I got eyes, don’t I?”

“Her mother says she can help, Qi.” Marezelle wafted up through the opening in the dirt after the baby. “She would have come but she’s too big.”

“Wu is never ever going to let us hear the end of this,” he muttered, eyes wide. “Seriously. Ever.”

“Well, I hope no one wants me to sing to it,” I muttered right back. “Not that I guess it matters, I ain't a Hou-Ting.”

“I don’t believe all of that anyhow. He’s making that shit up, royalty being badgermole whisperers or whatever.” He was scowling now.

“How do you explain the whole zoo thing? Or the riding them around the train tunnels thing?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

The baby shuffled her way across the cellar floor, snout twitching along, claws scrabbling against the stone. Marezelle whispered something at her and she lumbered her way to the wall. Even a baby badgermole is nothing to sneeze at; she was one big girl, that’s for sure.

“Did you know you had badgermoles on your land?”

“I don’t know shit.” I shook my head, sucked on my teeth a bit. “The second he hears about it he’s going to make me drive him right back up here so he can sing to them.”

“How can you not know? How do you miss a badgermole?” He waved his hands wildly at it.

“It’s a lot of land, Mako. Give me a break.”

“The mother and her baby live far past the lake, Qi, deep into the forest. But they came closer because they were hoping the Wu one came like before.” Marezelle tapped on the wall and the baby snuffled at it.

“Wu?”

“Yes, Qi. They would like to meet him. They know him, he is the same blood as the man who lived here before.”

I pointed my finger triumphantly at Mako and he rolled his eyes, scoffing, crossing his arms and refusing to look at me. “You mean the man who built this place?”

“Yes, Qi. He honored the badgermoles.”

“Huh. Well, Wu will want to meet them too, I can pretty much guarantee that.”

“That’s good, Qi. They would like that.”

I didn’t ask how it was she was communicating with the badgermoles. I’m not exactly all that knowledgeable about spirits. I’m pretty sure even Korra doesn’t come close to knowing everything there is to know, and if any of us would, it’d be her. Plenty of the spirits get along with humans, though, like Marezelle up here or the one that hangs out in the backyard at home. It calls itself His Eminence Sir Wonky Brisket Baked Bean The Fourth; Also Known As Bob. Bob’s pretty personable as far as spirits go, all things considered. That being said, it likes to follow Wu around and blow raspberries at him, so as you can imagine there’s not a lot of love lost there. Once it referred to Wu as His Majesty The Exalted Emperor Of La-Di-Fucking-Da and I made the mistake of laughing and Wu didn’t speak to me for damn near a week. Likes Zhi, though. They discuss specimens together.

The baby had apparently done enough inspecting; with a low sort of grunt she slammed those big paws of hers down and shoved them apart. The back wall wrenched open with a ear-splitting noise and a fair amount of dust and all of us winced, including the poor baby herself. Well, I’m sure her Mama could have done better but she was giving us her all. Can’t learn without trying, right? Without thinking about it I went and put my hand on her thick neck.

“Well now, look at that, right open and clean as a whistle!” I said, trying to be encouraging. Like she was Meili or something. I don’t know, it’s not like I have a lot of experience with baby badgermoles or anything, I was doing my best. She made a little warble then; sounded real unsure of herself, and I couldn’t help it, I cleared my throat and repeated myself, only this time I sang it.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Mako said from behind me, but I ignored him. Like he was being useful at that point! The baby though, she squeaked a little and leaned into me, nearly knocking me onto my ass.

“Oh, that’s nice, Qi,” said Marezelle, looking about as approving as I guess a sort of purple cat owl spirit can.

So I patted her - well, more like thumped her, I didn’t figure a little pat would register - and sang, “Thanks for your help, Little Bit.” A throaty burble and that time she did knock me down, sniffing at my face and slurping me with her tongue. Not what I was expecting, but hey, a kiss is a kiss. “You tell your Mama we appreciate it,” I sang to her, and she nudged me flat onto my back. Listen, you have a badgermole family living on your land, best to be on good terms with them. Same idea as Madame Zong from next door, if you get right down to it. She scooted backwards then, and with a last little chirrup at me, dug herself right back out again. The floor was slightly uneven where she’d been and the wall would need some repairing, but I bet it was her first time working on a house and she did a real nice job of it, her Mama should be proud. And anyhow, I can get either Wei or Bolin to come and fix it later.

“And this is my life,” Mako said, to no one in particular. He stepped forward and tapped a little where the baby had gone back down, checking to make sure it was stable.

“Marezelle, I’m grateful for your help with the badgermole,” I told her, and she brushed a little paw across me. “And thanks for telling me this was here.”

“I didn’t know Qi liked old things,” she said. Which goes to show you that even though we share space with spirits, they really don’t think like we do. A human would have told me that room was there right away. I’m not saying it’s a good thing or a bad thing; just something to keep in mind. No point in trying to expect them to behave like humans, which is exactly why Wu doesn’t get on with any of them. He expects them to treat him like royalty and they don’t work that way.

It was a fairly big room back there; it looked the same as the rest of the cellar, walls and floor made of reinforced stone. The air was more than a bit musty; Mako stuck his head in there and started to sneeze, told me to give it a few to air out for a bit. Everything seemed good and dry, though. Most all of the stonework up here was like that, still in decent condition even after a hundred and fifty some-odd years of neglect. Those old Imperial earthbenders knew what they were about. The baby had left a good deal of torn up stone and rubble, though, so while the air was clearing out we shifted the bigger pieces out of the way, tried to stack it as neatly as we could, making a path. I figured we’d have to haul it all out eventually, sweep up the mess. But we could leave that for another day. I wanted to get a look in there, and I know I wasn’t the only one.

The shelves inside the room were made of stone, still standing. At first glance I could see it was well organized; plenty of small boxes that I was guessing had jewelry; some big narrow crates that later turned out to have paintings wrapped in oilcloth inside, larger boxes that had who knows what in them and a fairly wide selection of weapons. In the middle of the floor was a wooden stand with a book of some sort on it, and I went straight for it, opening it carefully, worried that it would fall to pieces. It was fragile, no doubt, but held up under my careful hands. The ink had faded and softened a good deal, but was still readable.

“What is it?” Mako asked. He was peering around the room, not yet touching anything.

“Looks like a manifest of some sort.” I cautiously turned a few pages. “Box sixteen: the engagement parure of Princess Gaoyang, consisting of eight gold and jade combs, a set of matching gold earrings, six jade bracelets and a gold and jade necklace. The theme is that of a spring garden.” I shook my head. “It goes on to tell what they all look like.” I grinned at him. “Somebody liked details as much as you do.”

He shot me a look at that. “Someone had some sense, then.” He scanned the shelves before carefully removing one of the boxes, opening it up. “Here it is, just as marked.” He whistled. “I don’t know much about jewelry, but this is amazing.” He brought it over for me to look at, and I whistled in turn.

“Well, shit." Understatement of the year, for sure. All of the pieces were nestled into places made for them in plush yellow silk, still in gorgeous condition. “Imagine the Butterfly all dressed up in these,” I said, and the both of us stood there for a moment, staring down at those wonderful things, thinking of our girl all grown up and wearing pieces like this. I think it shook the both of us up a little. She’s still just a girl, of course - just about to turn twelve - but womanhood is lurking around the corner, waiting to pounce on her. She’ll never be the knockout beauty it’s already clear that Meili is going to be but she’s a lively girl, good-looking in that severe sort of highborn Fire Kingdom kind of way. (Not that there’s proof of it, mind, but one night when LoLo was far into his cups he told me he’d suspected since the moment he met her that she was nobility of some sort of the other, and I don’t think he’s wrong.)

“She’d look beautiful,” Mako said softly, and then he sniffled, refusing to look at me. The poor man is taking the Butterfly getting older harder than all the rest of us put together. She’s started to pay attention to what she’s wearing, has even taken to styling her own hair sometimes, something I think is breaking Wu’s heart more than a little, although he’ll never show it, of course. Wu’s funny that way; he’ll pitch a fit over little things that really aren’t that important, weeping and wailing and carrying on. When it comes to the things that really upset him, though, he’ll keep it to himself.

We spent the rest of the afternoon going through the things in there. There was a lot of jewelry, including a gold and ruby wedding crown that had belonged to Wu’s great-grandmother times six. What it was doing here I had no idea. Had they hidden things here to keep them safe from the Fire Nation during the war? Didn’t make much sense to me; we were still in the United Republic’s borders, and the Fire Nation had invaded in and out of this entire area. Wouldn’t they have been safer in Ba Sing Se? The manifest didn’t say why the things were there, and I don’t know enough history to make a guess. I was betting Wu might have a pretty good idea, though, and Mako agreed. After some discussion we decided to leave the paintings packed up in the crates that had been made to fit them; much as I wanted to get a look at them I thought it was a better idea to get someone from Republic City’s museum, someone who knew something about them, to make sure we didn’t damage them. Same thing with the books, which was what a fair amount of some of the medium boxes were holding. Oh, I was itching to get my hands on them, but best to let an expert take care of them. I couldn’t wait to tell Wu about them - according to the manifest some of them were the personal journals of his great-times-three-grandmother. Wu would probably faint dead when I told him about that!

There were other things too, things like vases and other porcelain figurines, and even this amazing metal turtlelion that you could wind up and it would move about, so real that Mako and I both went speechless with wonder at it. One of the boxes had a doll, complete with a wardrobe of perfect clothes and shoes and accessories and such. She had real hair and eyes that opened and closed and little shaped pearls for teeth, and the embroidered detail on her clothing was very, very fine. I was afraid to touch her, she was so beautiful and delicate. Mako found a set of Fire Nation daggers, done in some sort of wavy reddish steel, marked in the manifest as a gift from Firelord Sozin, of all people. It was the stuff of kings and queens, that’s for damn sure.

There was no way we were going to get all of this in the car, though. I felt leery of leaving them there all exposed; to the best of my knowledge no one’s bothered the place when I’m not here but I’d hate to risk it, you know? Mako and I were discussing it when Marezelle, who had been lurking about, enjoying the reveals as much as we were, upped and spoke.

“Does Qi need to get a message to the Wu one?”

I blinked. “Well, it would be helpful, but we don’t have a phone up here.”

“Qi doesn’t need a phone. I can ask Bob to tell the Wu one.”

Mako and I looked at each other, all four eyebrows raised.

“You know Bob?” Mako was skeptical as all get out.

“Yes, I know Bob.” Marezelle reached out a paw and tapped a sword with a raw emerald the size of Meili’s fist in the pommel.

“And you can...somehow speak to Bob?” Mako went from skeptical to quit fucking with me all in one go.

“Of course, Mako.” Marezelle, on the other hand, looked at Mako like he’d said just about the stupidest thing she’d ever heard.

“How do you…” Mako waved his hand just like a Beifong. “You know what, never mind. You can really get a message to Bob?”

Marezelle didn’t answer this. Not that I blamed her. Hadn’t she just said?

I thought for a moment. “Can you ask Bob to speak to LoLo instead? He and Wu don’t exactly like each other.”

“Bob likes the Wu one, Qi.”

Yeah, likes to torment him, I thought, but didn’t bother to say it. “Well, I think LoLo is the better choice.”

“All right, Qi. What should Bob tell the LoLo one?”

“Tell him that we’ve found some things and we need Bolin and Opal to come up here tomorrow morning with Juicy to help us,” Mako threw in, and then glanced at me. “If that’s okay with you.”

“Good idea,” I said. “Juicy can help us carry back whatever doesn’t fit in the car and Bolin can fix up the floor.”

“I will tell him,” Marezelle said, and drifted back through the wall.

“How do you think they do that?” Mako asked, frowning. “I don’t think Korra knows they can do that.”

I shrugged. “Spirit telegrams?” He just snorted at that. “Not a clue.” I stretched my arms up and over my head and twisted my spine a little. I realized I was starving again. “Let’s do some dinner, yeah?” Mako just nodded at that and followed me back up the stairs. Both of us were pretty damn dusty and dirty at that point, so I ran us a bath while Mako scrounged up something for us to eat. I was going to take a bath on my own but the man had other ideas, he wanted to take one with me. I’m all for romantic baths but I don’t like to do much of anything when I’m hungry, so I let him get in first while I fueled up. Comes from when I was a kid, I guess. The grown part of my mind tells me that I know when my next meal is coming (and since nine times out of ten it’s coming from LoLo it’ll be a good one) but I don’t know, my baby brain takes over and I have to eat or I just can’t manage to relax. Stupid, and I wish I could do something to fix it, but so far no dice. Luckily Mako gets it, so he just waited for me to shovel enough in to shut my head up, and then I got in with him.

I love Wu’s chatter - if I didn’t, would I be marrying him? - but Mako is, by nature, a quiet man. That’s okay with me too. He lay me along him and wrapped his arms around me and I let the back of my head rest against his shoulder. If you aren’t what he considers a loved one, then he’s not very outgoing with his feelings. Different thing entirely if he loves you, of course. He loves on his babies, hugs them and kisses them too, not to mention he enjoys nothing more than to throw them on the floor and wrestle around with them. His hands are all over Wu, and he’s always got his brother caught up in some sort of a hug. But he’s not a casual toucher, not like Wu is. So it surprised me, now that he felt he could touch me, how often he did. I like it. I just lay there with him, as the water cooled a bit, knowing I should scrub up but not wanting to move just yet.

“So, suppose I did quit,” he said. Might have appeared to be out of nowhere to those that don’t know him, but he’s a thinker, this one. Never do know what’s going through that head of his. “What would I do with myself?”

“Join Wu’s committees?” I said, but we both knew I was just having him on. He snorted.

“Why, so that Jun-Yi could try and get me into bed?”

I laughed at that. The woman was seventy if she was a day, and well known around town for all the young men she liked to string along. “She might tease, but she’d never dare go against Wu for you.”

“You don’t think so?”

“You really think anyone would go out of their way to antagonize him?” I shook my head, my hair sticking to his wet shoulder. “That man is devious.”

“Hmph,” he said. He doesn’t like thinking about Wu being devious, that’s for sure. We were quiet for a bit, and then I took his hand in mine.

“What about going into business for yourself? Private cases, I mean?”

“What, like a private detective or something?” I could tell by the tone of his voice he hadn’t thought about it.

“Why not? You could take on cases that interested you. Don’t get me wrong, I know a lot of it is people trying to see if their spouses are cheating on them, but you don’t need to take those cases. Not like you need the money, so why should you?”

“Huh.”

I kept on going. “The way I see it, you’d have the best of both worlds. You could take on the cases you wanted and you wouldn’t have to worry about the political side of it.”

His thumb was running up and down the length of my hand. “Meaning?”

“Meaning that Song has to do a real balancing act as the Chief of Police in order not to step on toes. It’s all about politics, even Lin’s told me that. Haven’t there been times when you got told to drop something or keep your nose out of it because the person in question was too powerful?” He made an angry grunt at me. “Take that husband-kisser, for example. I know you looked into him on your own, if you had run it by Lin first she would have never let you do it.”

“True enough.” He nuzzled into my neck. “You know, funny thing about him. When he was out on bail, waiting to go to trial, someone broke into his place and beat the ever living shit out of him.”

“You don’t say.”

“Never did find out who did that.”

“Interesting.”

“According to him the guy appeared out of nowhere in his flat, had his face covered with a mask, never said a word, just did him over and left.”

“Guess he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, yeah?”

“Guess so.” He nuzzled at my ear. “Could have made things awkward for me if I hadn’t been at a pro-bending match with the Chief of Police and the Avatar at the time.”

“Always good to have an airtight alibi.”

“It is, yeah.”

“Have to say, I think he probably got what he deserved though.”

“Well, he did go to prison and lose his business.”

“And that was on you, old son. Just what I’m talking about. You took that man’s life apart, just by studying his financial records and finding where his ass was hanging out in the wind. That’s what I mean about you solving puzzles.”

“In other words, I’ll do my thing and you’ll do yours?”

“In other words.”

He laughed then, and flipped me around, water sloshing out of the tub, so he could kiss me. “You do have a way of looking at things, don’t you?”

“I’m a practical person. People fuss too much over shit they can’t do anything about. You’re rich. That’s just the way it is. Why pretend you’d need to take on any case someone threw your way just for money?” I laid my face against his. “Besides, there are plenty of other detectives out there who do need the money, so you’d be taking food out of their mouths, and for what reason?” I kissed his cheek. “Take the cases you want. Leave the ones you don’t. You’d be doing what interested you, and you’d have more time for the kids. All these late nights and overtime is hard on them. They miss you when you aren’t around.”

That probably wasn’t fair of me. I mean, it’s true, but he carries a lot of guilt whenever he has to miss out on something family-related because of work.

“Wu hates my work,” he said slowly, thinking it through. “I don’t know that doing it privately would help.”

“Wu hates your work for two reasons. One because he’s afraid someone’s going to hurt you or worse on the job, which is a legitimate fear, it’s happened before. The other is that he doesn’t like it that you’re his consort and you’re working at a job that takes priority over him.”

His chest rumbled with a laugh. “Shit, Qi.”

“It’s true! He is who he is, it’s not like you didn’t know it when you married him. All the times he travels around, he gets pissy when you can’t come. As it is he yanks Naoki out of school when he wants to and I’m sure he’ll do the same with the baby when she starts school. I’ve always been at his beck and call, that’s for damn sure. He’s a king, Mako. The fact that he doesn’t demand you quit takes a lot of self-restraint on his part. A lot of it.”

“Yeah, I know.” 

“Not to mention, if your time was your own you might be able to lend Korra a hand sometimes. I think she’d be glad to drag you along every once in awhile.”

He got real still at that one for a long minute. “I...you really think so?”

“What, do I think she’d rather have you along than Kai? Don’t get me wrong, you know I like Kai, and so does Korra as far as I can tell. He’s good at what he does, no mistake, and he’s a personable guy. But I’m pretty sure that if she needed backup she’d rather have her best friend along.” I shrugged into him. “I mean, maybe I’m talking out of my ass but I don’t think so.”

“But sometimes she’s gone for weeks at a time.”

“Yeah well, I doubt she’d ask you to do that, she knows you have the kids and all. But maybe on some of her shorter trips.”

“Huh.” He shifted underneath me. I don’t think it had ever occurred to him that Korra might like to have him along. He’s funny like that. Mind like a steel trap, but he’s not all that good with human relations. Or at least not the ones that aren’t in front of him in clear black and white. He picked up the soap and sighed. “I don’t know. I’ll think about it. Sit up and turn around, I’ll scrub your back.”

“Thanks.” I turned about and let him start to soap me up. “Wu will probably kick my ass for bringing it up, I was supposed to give you a relaxing weekend.”

He laughed a little at that. “Yeah well, you can make up for it later.” His soapy hand slid around my body and gave my nipple a little tweak.

“Oh, is that so?”

“If the goal is to get me relaxed…” His hands were moving around me, and we were starting to get a little bit frisky with it when Marezelle reappeared. Talk about a mood-killer. Spirits don’t really have any sense of personal boundaries. Or at least none of the ones I’ve met, anyhow. They don’t seem to give a damn if you’re wearing clothes or not, doing whatever. I think humans would handle them better if they didn’t just appear when a body was trying to use the head or was in the middle of getting it on. Once Bob showed up in the house and whistled at Wu when he was getting out of the shower and Wu screamed in such a way that Lin practically flew up the stairs thinking someone was killing him. Bob thought it was pretty damn funny, but I’m not sure if either Lin or Wu has recovered from her busting into his bathroom and seeing him standing there, naked and dripping wet, threatening Bob with his hairbrush. Spirits. I still regret I missed that one, LoLo told me about it later and laughed so hard he cried.

“The LoLo one says that the others will come in the morning,” she informed us.

“Thank you, Marezelle,” I said, trying to be sort of casual about skooching down in the tub. “I really appreciate it.”

“Yes, Qi,” she said, and left the bathroom, thankfully. I’m not modest, but that doesn’t mean I want a spirit gawking at me, neither.

Mako rested his head on mine and snorted, a sound that he’s picked up from Lin. “If I know Opal, she’ll make sure they’re up and at it bright and early. Guess that means we won’t be sleeping in tomorrow.” He sighed. “Oh well. Do we have enough to feed them some lunch?”

“Have you met LoLo?”

“Good point.” He tapped my head. “I’m going to rinse,” he warned, and then tried his best to drown me with clean water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A very special thanks to my Betareader's kids, É and W, for letting me know what Bob's full name was.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you think too much.

After dinner I thought he might want to read some more of Wu’s manuscript but he had something else in mind, which was more than fine with me. The thing about being all the way out here is you don’t have to worry about disturbing other folks! He took all my clothes off of me, piece by piece, taking his own sweet time about it, too. Man’s got a way about him; he can be so still, so concentrated. He can make you feel naked with every stitch of clothing still on you. He lay me out on that bed and started touching me, all over my body, one hand smooth and the other rough with his scars, finding places on me that I had never known could feel so good. I don’t know how to explain it, he had me all fired up but sort of relaxed at the same time. He told me it was his turn, that all I needed to do was lay there, and he’d take care of me. When he’d finished touching me to his satisfaction then he started to kiss me; from head to toe, even turning me over so he could get all sides of me. I asked him, at one point, what he was doing and he told me he was getting to know every single inch of me.

It’s hard for me to relax like that around most people. I’m usually on the defensive; I’m always ready and waiting to move in less than a second’s notice. But I let him move me where he wanted me, let him take over. I don’t know that I’ve ever been able to do that with anybody before. I don’t even know how long we were there, I lost all track of time, I just felt so good. He never even touched me with his prick, he just kept at me with his hands and his mouth and finally, when he had his mouth on me and his fingers inside of me and I really did think I’d die if he didn’t let me come he took me there, too, and even that was slow and long and so deep that I fell right asleep without even a thanks or giving him anything in return, neither.

I woke up some time later, I’m not sure when. It was dark, the moon shining in through the windows. Mako was asleep next to me, one hand resting on my ribcage. I lay there for a time, trying to get back to sleep, but nothing doing. So I eased myself out of the bed, threw on Mako’s shirt and went for a little walk, thinking I’d get a little fresh air, maybe ease myself back into sleep. I walked about the house for a bit before I slipped outside and went down to the lake, sitting myself on a big rock there. It’s not natural; I think there must have been a little pavilion here at one time, like the one Wu has in the backyard. Been thinking I should see about having another one built, it’d be real nice to have here. I sat there for a time, listening to the little slap slap slap of the water against the shore, a grasshopper cricket singing her song for me. It smelled so clean, the stars were so clear and close. Makes a body start thinking, you know?

I should have known better than to do that.

Here’s the thing. I know who I am. I’m no hero. Mako, he’s got a past, sure, but when the time came he pulled himself out of the gutter on his own and he stayed out of it. He’s a self-made man; his bending, his friends, his connections. His job, for sure. He’s a good husband and an even better father. I admire him, I do, and I know I’m not the only one.

I’m nothing like that. I ain’t saying I’m trash or anything - I’m a person, just like any other body - but I didn’t get where I am because I’m someone to admire. Sure, I grew up wrong. I got a bad roll of the dice, no doubt. But that car I boosted, the one Mako caught me for? The one that started this whole circus? I didn’t take it because I needed it. Mako, he did what he did on the streets so he and Bolin could eat and stay as safe as they could. It was all about survival for him. I took what wasn’t mine because I wanted it, plain and simple. I wanted to know how fast that car went and I wanted to drive it. I didn’t give a single damn about who I was stealing it from, or who I might have run down in the street while I was driving along like a wolfbat on the kill. It wasn’t my first time stealing a car, neither. I liked the thrill of it, liked how it made me feel in control.

Did I beat the shit out of that Reiji? You bet I fucking did. I beat him within an inch of his life and left him on the floor, broken and begging me for his life. I beat him because he left Wu alone in a bad neighborhood where he could have easily been mugged or worse. I beat him because I was angry, because I was guilty - I should have been driving him that night, and if I had been it would have never happened, and I felt that, oh fuck me but I’m still carrying the shame of that - and because I was jealous. I knew I didn’t have a say as to whether or not Mako was kissing on my Wu, but nobody the fuck else better be.

I wasn’t reckless about it. I had the sense to know, even as a teenager, that they’d come for Mako for doing it. I may have had my own jealousy over Mako but that didn’t mean I wanted him to carry something I’d done. I had my own honor, as fucked up as it was. Is. So I waited until he was going to be at that pro-bending match and I made my move. Reiji lived in one of the new fancy buildings that had been built up near our side of the North Bridge; all the up and coming rich folk were living there, including Wei a year or so after that. I had gloves; I had a mask. I found out which flat was his. Getting in wasn’t going to be a problem for me, I knew how to pick a lock. If I wore my chauffeur's uniform I’d pass unseen, I knew that too. Rich people, they just look right through the help. May as well not exist as far as most of them are concerned. So I had it planned; I’d wear my uniform, take the tram until I got there - I could easily walk it, but I’d be less obvious on the tram, where the help was expected to be in that neighborhood after their workday was over - stash the uniform until I was done, then put it back on and head home. Easy peasy.

Yeah, that was until I walked out the door of my flat above the garage and there was LoLo on the landing, sitting in the chair I kept out there for when I wanted a smoke in peace, drinking a glass of whiskey, looking for the world like he was just casually passing the time, despite the fact that his knee must have been screaming at him, climbing up my stairs. How the fuck did he know? I still wonder, all these years later. I guess it was because he’d been more than a bit of a hellion in his time. That and he always had made me his business, from the first day Wu had brought me home. He took another drink and said, like he was remarking on the weather, “I’ll ask you to hand over those knives now, my dear.”

“Dunno what you mean,” I said, tensing up, hands going instinctively to where they were stowed under my jacket.

He just smiled a little and took another sip. “Someone gets a well-deserved beating, well, the police don’t have to investigate that too deeply. A murder, though? That’ll mean some looking into.” He met my eyes then. “You don’t want Lin to have to do that, do you?”

I didn’t, as it happened, much as I was burning to make that Reiji pay. So I shrugged and dug them out, all six of them, and handed them over to him. He wrapped them in a kitchen towel he had on him.

“The spare, now.” He held his hand out. Damn the man, anyhow. I dug that one out of my boot and handed it over. He stood up then, and kissed my cheek. “Be smart the way I know you can be. Make sure you keep a pair of gloves on, you hear?”

I nodded, and then he stepped aside and let me go down the stairs without saying another word. He understood.

When I came back, my knuckles raw and bleeding through the gloves, he was sitting inside my flat then, with ice and bandages. Without a word he sat me down on my sofa, cleaned and iced my hands, bandaged them up and gave me a shot of whiskey. And then, when I started crying my eyes out and couldn’t stop, he took me in his arms and held me, rocking me back and forth, murmuring, “There now, there now, it’s over,” until I was finally able to stop and he saw me to bed.

He never brought it up again.

To say I love LoLo doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface. He loved me even when I wasn’t lovable by anyone. That means everything to someone like me. You might think that Wu made me want to be a better person, and that’s true to an extent. Wu made me want to be better for him. LoLo made me want to be better for myself, though. I honor him as a father.

I don’t know who the fuck I am any more. Wu, he knows exactly who he is. He might have abdicated, sure, but he’s a Hou-Ting prince. His entire life, that’s been who he is. Anything else he might be - father, husband, philanthropist - all of those things are just layers on the onion that’s Wu. He doesn’t even have to think about it and I don’t think he does. Why should he? No one can take that away from him, crown or not. Mako, he’s a man who takes care of things. I bet even when he was a little tiny boy he was taking care of business. LoLo’s got his humor and his drive to take care of other people, Lin’s got her honor and her sense of justice. Wei, that poor bastard, desperately wants everyone to love him. Even Meili, as bitty as she is, knows she wants to make people feel better. Zhi wants to learn and the Butterfly wants to be the best. Never saw a kid as driven as the Butterfly is, she’s single-minded, kind of scary about it.

But me? Who am I? I’m adaptable, I guess. I can be whatever the situation calls for. Do you want a man? A woman? I can give it to you either way. Do you want a fighter? A lover? A thief? A killer? A storybook reader? I’m all those things and none of those things neither.

I spent those months at Lin’s place and I’d sit there, all alone, in the silence, just waiting to figure it out. I thought to myself, if I give myself some time, some quiet, some space, it’ll come to me, who I am. Or maybe even who I want to be.

It didn’t, though.

It’s not that I don’t have goals. Being able to keep Wu and the kids safe no matter what is a goal, and I’ve worked hard at it and I’ll do what needs doing to that end. I’ve killed for Naoki and I’ve got no regrets about it. I’d do it again. But I ain’t stupid. I know there’s supposed to be more to me than that.

Far as I can see, I never did nothing to deserve where I am today. Mako? He worked so hard to get where he is. He made himself into a better man, he formed that pro-bending team with his brother when pro-benders were all professionals, with rich backers and coaches and training gyms and the like. And here comes Mako, self-trained, not a yuan to his name, in hock up to his eyeballs for the brokedown equipment they had before Asami Sato sweet-talked her Daddy into sponsoring them. Those other pro-benders, they were living in fancy flats and drinking champagne and getting massages and meanwhile, there’s Mako, damn near killing himself at the power plant, running through all his chi trying to make it so they’d have half a chance. Bless Bolin, and I do like the man, but I still don’t think he gets it. And Korra? Whose Daddy is a chieftain, a princess herself? She was so busy being the Avatar and doing pro-bending just to prove that no one could tell her what to do with her life she never put a damn thought into how the fuck Mako was even eating, never mind trying to afford all the fees on his own. And I know the man well enough to know that he sure as shit never complained about it, never mind brought it up. He just does what needs to be done and he doesn’t whine about it, neither. He’s still like that.

Wu didn’t do anything for his money, true. He was born to it, lucky circumstance where his Daddy was a prince and his Mama was richer than a royal herself. He doesn’t need to give what he gives to all those charities, though. He started the charities for street kids in both Republic City and Ba Sing Se and he’s set up scholarships at several universities and donates plenty to the arts and, even though I don’t think any of us are supposed to know this, has been pouring money into private support for the survivors of Kuvira’s re-education camps. (I only know it because I found him actually asleep at his desk in the middle of the night one night, and he had paperwork about it there in front of him. And also because I figured out the combination to his safe.) He doesn’t do these things for pats on the back. He does them because he really wants to help people. He cares. He cares too much, I think, he takes a lot of it to heart although of course you’d have to know him really well to see it.

You get what I’m saying, here? The two of them, they’re so different from each other, but at the same time they both care, so much. Me? You think I do anything for the shithole I came from? I don’t. I don’t know what happened to those whores I grew up with. I don’t want to know. Not even Drunk Lu, who saved my life. I don’t even help with Wu’s charity because I see those kids, and it’s like I’m there again, so hungry and desperate, just a breath away from dying. I can’t even help any of those kids get out of the same trap I was in, and I’m in a place now where I could help them, do a whole lot for them. What kind of a person am I?

I’m not good. Not like Mako, not like Wu. Not like LoLo, who never judged me, who took care of me. Not like Lin, who understood what I needed - first the knives, then the name - and gave them to me. And I don’t understand it. Why? Why me? I’ve never done nothing to deserve it.

Every time Meili crawls into my lap and rests her little curly head on my chest, waiting for me to read to her, I feel like a sham. She’s so small, so innocent, so good. She don’t know about the things I’ve done, the things I’ve seen. She don’t know about the people I threw away or the satisfaction I felt when I beat down that Reiji. Her Daddy might have done some things in the past that he regrets now, but he’s evened the score with all the good he’s done. How have I ever evened the score?

I’m so scared, all the time, that they’re all going to suddenly wake up one day and realize that I’m not worth it, that I’m not a good person. It used to be enough for me that I had enough money saved up that I could make sure that I would never have to go back to where I came from. But it’s not enough any more. I think I’d just lay down and die if Wu kicked me out, if Lin turned her back on me. I tried to fix it when I was staying at Lin’s. I kept telling myself, over and over again, that I could do good things. And when I killed that man that was coming for Naoki, then I thought to myself, okay, I saved her life, I deserve to go back to that house, I can marry Wu now, I proved myself a part of the family.

But what if I’m just fooling myself again? I love them all so much. I never wanted to. If I had known love could feel like this, that it could slice your heart to pieces, I would have just stolen the silver on that first day at the house and made a break for it. It’s not safe. All my life I’ve done everything I done so I could be safe, and now here I am, and I’m less safe than I ever was when I was doing for myself on the streets.

I didn’t even know I was crying about it until suddenly there were arms around me and Mako’s damn lucky I didn’t have my knives on me because I was so busy boo-hooing that I didn’t even hear him coming.

“Hey,” he said, pulling me close. “Hey, now.” He settled down next to me, I could see his frown in the moonlight. “You disappeared on me. What’s going on?”

“I ain’t safe,” I said, which was a damn stupid thing to say, but he just sighed a little and tightened his arms on me, trying to support me or keep me from running off, I don’t know. Maybe both.

“Oh, Qi,” he said, and I don’t know why, but it made me cry harder. I swear I’ve cried more in the past few months than I ever cried in my entire life. Wu and his never-ending supply of fancy monogrammed hankies would have come in real handy just about then. “Come on, now. You’re safe. What’s this all about?”

Mako should have been one of those legendary Samurai of old, the ones that traveled around, righting all the wrongs with their firebending, having fluttery Fire Nation maidens sighing after them. He likes to be a hero, for sure. And I don’t know, I never want to depend on anyone. You can’t depend on nobody but yourself, not really. But right then and there, I was so tired of everything - of myself, of the wedding, of people kissing my newly-minted noble ass - that I just let him play hero to me while I cried. I trusted he wouldn’t let me down, and he didn’t. He just held on to me, stroking along my head the same way I’ve seen him do to the kids when they need some extra loving, never minding that I was making a mess of the both of us. He waited until I’d calmed down some and then he said, “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

I did want to. I wanted to tell someone. I might have told Wei, but he’s struggling himself right now, trying so hard, I didn’t want to dump anything on top of him. Lin was good for some things, but handling weepers was not one of those things she did well. LoLo would have listened, for sure, but I don’t want him to think badly of me. And Wu, bless him, he’d just start insisting that everything was fine, the way he always does. So I guess Mako was it.

I let him have it. I don’t know if it was what he bargained for. Most likely not! I told him about it, about how I felt like a fraud, how I felt like I didn’t deserve any of this, some of the things I’d seen and done in my life. I even told him how guilty I felt, that I made it out when so many never did. I just let all of that poison out of me, burning me up as it came out. And Mako, he’s not always the best man for comforting people, it’s true. But he knows how to listen. He’d listened to me on the beach that day and he was listening to me cry on that rock in front of my pretty little lake, my voice gone all hoarse and cracking the way it used to, and when I finally said, in whatever scrap was left of my voice, “I guess you hate me now,” he kissed me as tender as tender can be and said, “I don’t hate you, Qi. I love you,” and then, when I started up crying again, this awful dry thing without any tears left in me, he picked me up like I was Meili and carried me all the way back to the bedroom, where he fetched me a glass of water, made me drink it, and then put me to bed, sitting down next to me, holding me close.

“You think too much,” he said, kissing me ever so gentle on my forehead. “Give it a few months, the wedding will be over, Wu will calm down, things will settle.”

“He don’t want me,” I whispered. I could feel my face getting hot.

“What do you mean, he doesn’t want you? He wants to marry you, Qi, don’t be an ass.”

“No, I mean he don’t want me in bed.” I couldn’t even meet his eyes. “Not like you do.”

“Hmmmm,” he said. He cradled the back of my head and started to rub in small circles back there, soothing me some. “I don’t think that’s true. Why do you think that?”

I shrugged. “Sometimes he seems like he does, but then he just stops.” I swallowed. “He finds some way to wiggle out of it. I mean, I ain’t no prize or nothing, but-”

He shook me just a little. “Stop that. Don’t say that about yourself.” He was quiet for a minute, thinking, hands still on me. “I…you know, Wu used to be really stupid about women. When I first met him, I mean, when he was still a teenager. He would try to hit on practically every woman he met, and he just…” he huffed a little, the way he does when he thinks something is funny. “It was so bad, it was just embarrassing. Korra hated him from the first moment she met him, thought he was a total prick, and to be honest he kind of was around her.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah. He even tried to hit on Kuvira once.”

“Get the fuck out.”

He did laugh at that. “Seriously. He did. At the time I thought he had a death wish or something. I realized later it was because he was so terrified of her he didn’t know what else to do. But see, he didn’t have any women around when he was growing up. He had a nanny, but when he was five he damn near died of an assassination attempt, he was poisoned - you knew that, right?” I nodded. “Yeah, well when he recovered she was gone. He never even got to say goodbye to her. His father died pretty soon after that and they shipped all of his concubines home and the only women around were a few maids and his Great-Aunt, the Queen.” He grunted. “She was a fucking scary and sincerely unpleasant lady. I had the displeasure of meeting her. Before she threw me in jail, that is.”

“Nice.”

“Oh, she was something else. Anyhow the only way he learned how to deal with women was by watching movers and reading romance novels once he got to Republic City, which wasn’t the best influence. I don’t think he really understood that you don’t need to talk to women any differently than you do to anyone else. Both my Grandma and Nuo did a lot to set him straight on that one, although I tried my best as well. It took him awhile, though.”

“Huh.”

“And I’m not trying to say that you’re a woman. You aren’t, and Wu’s never thought of you that way. My point is that when Wu doesn’t know how to do something he makes a real ass of himself instead of just asking or working it out like the rest of us. I think he’s getting stuck in his head about what he should be doing with your particular body, and because he’s Wu, he thinks that he needs to know how to do that, like he needs to have mastered it or something. And I could be wrong, but I’m guessing that might be what’s going on there.”

I wanted to think about it, but my head was aching. I’d cried too much, that’s for damn sure. “Huh.” I yawned, surprising myself with how exhausted it made me feel. He yawned right back and me and then smiled.

“Anyhow, just my theory. We can talk more about it later. Let’s go to sleep. I’m tired, you’re tired.”

“I’m sorry-” I started, but he put his finger to my mouth, shushing me when I tried to say anything more, easing me down onto my pillow, tucking the covers up around me.

“Sleep now,” he told me, petting my head. “Go on to sleep now. You got it all out of your system, you’ll feel better in the morning.” And then, to my eternal shock, he started to sing me some little cradle song, something about a little boy getting hushabyed, and, knowing I was safe, I let myself drift off.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guests arrive to see the surprise!

Mako and I were both still asleep the next morning when we heard the sound of Wu calling us. I sat up and called back that we were in the bedroom. Mako, being Mako, didn’t move. Thankfully I’d had his shirt on because when Wu came sashaying into our bedroom he was followed by Bolin. Wu was smiling, ear to ear like he does when he’s genuinely happy about something.

“Surprise!” he said, and sat himself on the bed to throw his arms around me. “You weren’t expecting me, were you?”

“No, since you told me you had that all-fired important meeting to get yourself ready for tomorrow.”

“Oh that,” he said, dismissing it with one of his little waves. “I simply called my firm and had them reschedule it for later in the week.” Oh, I’ll just bet he did. I could kick the man right in the seat of his silk shorts, I really could. Important meeting my sweet, dimpled ass.

“Opal’s getting Juicy settled, she’ll be in a sec,” Bolin said, leaning over, poking at Mako. His funeral. “LoLo gave us some extra food, too, just in case you guys ate the rest.”

“Not likely,” I said, and stretched. “Well, shove over, Wu, I guess I’d better get up.”

“What?” Mako shouted, suddenly sitting up, taking a swing at his brother. Bolin was clearly expecting it, though, because he ducked out of the way.

“Good morning, sleepyhead!”

“Fuck off,” Mako said, and tried to pull the covers back over his head.

“You know what? I think I’ll go make him some tea,” Bolin said, and skeedaddled right on out of there. Smart man.

 

By the time we’d convinced Mako to get out of bed and he and I had gotten dressed, Bolin and Opal had made breakfast for us, which was damn good of them. Bolin was happily having a second meal and even Opal was tucking into some cold noodles. Mako drank his first cup of tea in about two gulps and then went for his second one, easing into the day. Meanwhile, Wu was trying to winkle out of me what the surprise was but of course I wasn’t going to tell him.

Mako glanced up, frowning. “Wait. Where are all the kids?”

“With Lin and LoLo,” Bolin said. “Just the grownups here today.”

“What, did you think we’d left them outside with Juicy?” Opal was laughing at him. Mako just scowled at her and grunted and went back to his tea.

Wu was practically falling over, he was so excited. “So what, exactly, did you find?”

“Well, I did find a pretty good skipping stone yesterday. Made seventeen skips across the lake, which I think is a new record for me.”

“Oh, yes, we are so amusing this morning!” He was giving me one of his dirtiest looks and I couldn’t help it, I had to laugh. “Qi! Tell me right now!”

“Also found a real pretty patch of yellow flowers near the stream a ways down. Not sure what they’re called, I was thinking I could take a few home and look them up in a book.”

“Qi!” A stamp of his foot. “I know you did not ask us to come here to show me some flowers!”

“Point of fact, I didn’t ask you in particular to come at all.” I leaned over and booped his nose, and he actually sputtered at me.

“QI!”

Mako had apparently had enough tea, because he shook his head with a little smile. He isn’t one to tease Wu, but I think he’s usually pretty amused when I do. “Well, should we show them?”

“Well, I guess we could.”

Opal rolled her eyes. “Whenever you’re ready, we just got up at the asscrack of dawn and came all the way up here, after all.”

“Come on then,” I said, and headed towards the cellar door. “Probably easier to show you than tell you.” They all clattered down behind me, Mako bringing up the rear. I pointed towards the back wall and Mako pushed past us to light up the lanterns he’d put in there yesterday, what little electricity I have down here not doing much for it.

“It’s a hole in the wall,” said Bolin, stating the obvious for all of us.

“So Marezelle- you know, the little spirit who lives here? She told us there were some things here, hidden behind the cellar wall. First time I had any notion of it. Did you know about it, Wu?”

His eyes were huge in the dim light. “Certainly not, I told you, this place was abandoned after my great-great-great grandfather died. I don’t believe my great-grandfather ever knew of it and if my great-aunt did she certainly never said anything to me about it.” Wu frowned, staring at the opening. “If it was behind the wall, how on earth did you get to it? What made that hole?”

“Well. Yeah, see...that’s the thing.”

“Here we go,” Mako muttered.

“Marezelle went and got us some help.” I cleared my throat. “Reckon there’s a badgermole family living on the other side of the lake.”

Wu whipped around so fast I’m shocked his glasses stayed on his face. “Badgermoles? Where?”

“Qi just told you, on the other side of the lake.” Mako said, looking put out the way he does whenever he thinks people aren’t listening.

“Anyhow, the Mama sent her baby to come and help us, she came up through the floor and then broke the wall apart.”

“Oh yeah, I thought the floor was a little uneven.” Bolin prodded at it with his toe. “I can fix that.” He nodded towards all of the rubble the baby had left. “I can get rid of that, too.”

“I was hoping you would-” I started, but Wu cut me off.

“Well, where are the badgermoles now?” His arms were crossed and he was glaring at me like I was purposefully keeping them away from him.

“Back at their den, I expect.” He started to get that stormy look on his face which meant a tantrum was on the way, so I relented. “Heard tell they’d like to meet you and I think if we ask Marezelle very nicely she’d go and let them know you were here.”

He clasped his hands together. “Oh, Qi!”

“Fucking badgermoles,” Mako said, but he smiled when he said it.

I put my arms around him and shook him a little bit. “Don’t you want to see what we found, first?”

“I know I do!” Bolin was craning around Mako to try and get a look inside, grinning his head off. “A secret room full of loot!”

“Well go on in then. Mind the lanterns.” I gave Wu a gentle pat on his ass. “Go on, now.”

“We thought we’d leave the things that were wrapped up until we could get someone who knows what they’re doing to unwrap them,” Mako said. “There’s a manifest that details what’s in there, as far as Qi and I could tell it’s pretty accurate.”

“Oh, Qi,” Wu breathed out, hands to his mouth as he looked around the room. He stopped with a gasp when he saw all the boxes and Bolin, close on his heels, banged into him, nearly sending him to the floor. “Bolin!”

“Watch yourself!” Bolin answered, and yanked him back up. “Would you look at that sword!”

“Don’t wave it around in here!” Mako threw in as Bolin reached for it.

“I wasn’t going to!” Yeah, we all knew he was. Opal solved that problem by taking his hand in hers, squeezing it.

Wu zeroed in on the manifest; he reached for it but then stopped himself, looking to me for permission. I nodded at him and he bent down, paging through it.

“Did you know about any of this stuff?” I looked over his shoulder.

“No, I had no idea at all.” He gasped. “Oh Qi! Diaries!” He looked at me, tears in his eyes. “Oh, Qi!”

I smiled at him. I knew he was going to get excited about those. I turned to Opal. “You can go ahead and look through all of the boxes on that shelf, it’s pretty much all jewelry, I think.” Earlier Mako had found a pretty little opal pendant, set around with pearls, something that had belonged to Wu’s triple times great-grandmother’s concubine, according to the manifest. I’d already put that in my bag. Birthday present for Opal this year, sorted.

“Pretty exciting, yeah? Bet you never guessed you’d have things up here.” I reached over to flick a bit of dust away from his hair. He smiled at me; the real smile that he doesn’t give out to just anyone. I’m no poet, but it’s always put me in mind of how water looks when the sun bounces across it, bright and sparkling. He shot that smile my way that first day we met and that was it for me. I’ve been his ever since.

“These are your things. Not mine.”

My eyebrow shot up. “These are your family’s things, Wu.”

He shook his head and took my hand in his. “This is your home now, Qi. And therefore your things. I do hope, of course, that you’ll let me read the diaries. But what you choose to do with them is your choice.”

Yeah, I wasn’t quite agreeing with that, but I was willing to let it go at the moment. We spent some time down there, all five of us, looking through all that treasure. Bolin couldn’t stop himself from playing with the sword; finally I told him to take it upstairs and outside if he was going to wave it around like that and he ran up the stairs like a little kid, ignoring Opal yelling after him to be careful with it. Here’s hoping he doesn’t chop anything off.

Wu kept up his happy chatter, opening things and giving his opinion of them, putting on a carved coral necklace and several large rings while Mako and Opal and I discussed the logistics of getting everything back home on Juicy. We decided that I’d go with Opal and Bolin, loading up all the bigger boxes and such. Mako would take Wu and the jewelry in the car, the boxes were smaller and would probably all fit in the back seat. If for some reason we couldn’t get it all to fit then Bolin would close it behind the wall again until we could get back up with Juicy.

“But we don’t have to leave until tomorrow,” Wu said, displaying a set of wicked looking nail guards on his fingers. “Look what I found!”

Mako sent him such a look that I’m surprised we didn’t all go up in smoke. I don’t know what that’s about, but I’m curious, that’s for sure. Damn me anyhow. Opal met my eyes with her eyebrows up as if to say “Well, well, well,” and then we both looked away, Opal fighting down a grin.

“I have to work tomorrow, Wu.” Mako’s eyes kept sliding towards those nail guards.

“Certainly not,” Wu said, brushing away what he’d said with his fingers all lazy and long and graceful. Oh yeah, he was tracking those nail guards. Not even fooling the rest of us. “I called your work and let them know you would be unavailable tomorrow.” He smiled like he’d just solved the world’s problems for everyone.

“You did what the fuck now!” Uh oh, Mako was getting shouty. I caught Opal’s eye and nodded towards the steps. There was a fight brewing, and I wasn’t about to stick around. I know better than that. She and I made our quick exit into the kitchen, and I shut the door behind us. “I think we’ll just let them work that out on their own.”

“Oh, I’m not getting in the middle of it, not for love nor money.” She rolled her eyes, looking just like her Mama and her Aunt. “So take me on a tour? I haven’t been up here since you really started working on it.”

I held my arm out for her, all courtly like, and she took it and gave me a little bow back. I like Opal. From the very first she treated me like a real person, a person who mattered and had opinions, even. Say what you will about those Zaofu Beifong siblings, but they were raised right. I haven’t met the oldest one yet - we’re headed up there for a visit next month, if all goes well - but I know the rest of them and they are good, decent people.

I took her through the place, showing her the new windows, where I’d had the woodwork replaced, the plumbing put in, that sort of thing. I still didn’t have much in the way of furniture, though. I know my way about a suit of clothes but home decor, as Wu puts it, is way past my comfort zone. Some people can make a house look like a showpiece and some can’t, and I was one of the can’ts, I reckon. Wu has a good eye for that kind of thing but I’ve been going back and forth about asking his opinion. Wu has perfect taste but maybe a little too perfect, if that makes sense. I want it nice and comfortable, but not too fancy, you know? But as I was showing her around Opal threw out some opinions about what she thought would look nice there and she had some good ideas. Makes sense, she’s got a fair amount of artsy-type people in her family, and I’ve always liked her and Bolin’s home. I don’t know what came over me but I asked her, a little bit shy, if she might go with me to a few shops back home to look at some things and she gave me a real big smile and told me she’d be delighted to, and I think she meant it, too.

The original patterned stonework in the courtyard had been damaged somewhat, not to mention covered under a hundred and fifty years of grime, but it was still beautiful and it turned out that one of the locals was a mason whose however many times great-grandmother had been the one to do it in the first place. She’s been repairing what she can and replacing the rest, and it’s really coming together. In the middle of the courtyard is a big, mature oak tree, it couldn’t have been much more than a sapling back when the place was built. I love it. I showed Opal where I’d tied a swing to one of the branches - I was thinking the kids might like to swing on it when they come to visit - and she immediately took a seat and starting swinging, laughing like she was a little girl again. That’s where Bolin found us, still playing with that sword. I guess I’m going to have to give it to him, although I hope Opal puts it somewhere where Pearl won’t be getting any ideas like her Daddy. That Pearl’s already a little go-getter.

Bolin propped the sword up against the tree like it was some sort of toy instead of I don’t know how many hundreds of years old and then started to push Opal, trying to kiss her when she swung back his way. I’d be afraid he’d knock her off but for a man as big as he is Bolin’s always been real gentle. Not to mention I guess Opal could bend herself upright if she needed to. Next thing I know, there’s a little grabass going on and I figured it was time to make my exit. In any case, if they were going to spend the night then I needed to make the spare bed up, so I got myself doing that. The farmer’s wife had the bedclothes stored in a press with lavender, they smelled so good I felt like rolling about in them right then and there. I was just finishing up when Wu came into the room.

“You two done having your fight?”

“I don’t fight with Mako, Qi, my gracious. We may have had a slight disagreement, but we worked it all out.” A breezy wave of his hand. Which no longer had those nail guards on it. I bet if I went looking for them I’d find them already tucked away in the little bag he likes to carry, never mind that he said all of these things were mine.

“So I take it Mako’s not going to work tomorrow, then?”

He just looked down his nose at me. Well, he had a point. I don’t know why I bothered to ask. “Can I help?”

I had to grin at that. “Oh, and since when do you know how to make a bed?”

He came forward and fussily smoothed the coverlet down. “Hmph. It smells delicious.”

“Lavender.”

“Mmmm,” he said, still fussing at the bed. I tossed him a pillow, followed by a case.

“Go ahead and put that on then, if you want to help.”

He frowned a little at it and then tried to shove it in all at once. “Your eyes were quite puffy this morning,” he said, casual as casual can be. “Were you crying last night?” He wouldn’t look at me, just kept trying to shoehorn in the pillow.

“Since when do you notice if my eyes are puffy or not?”

That got me a look. “I do notice things, Qi.”

“You’re never going to get it in like that. You got to shimmy it in, like this.” I held up the other pillow and showed him what I meant, easing it into the case.

“Oh yes, that would make it considerably easier, wouldn’t it?” Shimmy shimmy shimmy. “Did you and Mako have a slight disagreement?” He was staring very carefully at the pillow.

“No, nothing like that. I just had a bit of a rough night. Happens.”

“Hmmmm.” I don’t think he was convinced, but he wasn’t going to push it, at least.

“Bo and I thought we could go and fish.” Mako stuck his head in the door. “Do you need me for anything?”

“Nope. You know where the poles are, right?”

“Yeah. We’ll be back, then.” His head disappeared.

“Surely we have enough food from LoLo,” Wu said. He gave the pillow a very good plumping. So good, in fact, that I think he might have been taking something out on it.

“Yeah, I don’t think it’s really about that. Fish won't be biting this time of day anyhow. They just want to spend some time together.” I shrugged, slapping my pillow down. “I want to go take a look in my stable, see if I can scare up some rope. We’re going to need it tomorrow. You coming?”

“Oh, well I suppose so.”

Last time he was up here - not the time we all got completely done for - LoLo took it upon himself to organize what had been the stable but what was currently my garage. He’d already put the cellar and kitchen into shape. That’s LoLo for you. Everything in his own kitchen is labeled within an inch of its life and put in its own place, and he knows down to the last grain what he has and what he needs. Many a time I’ve gone shopping for him and his lists are like naval orders themselves. No wiggle room. Needless to say, I did have rope, and plenty of it, all coiled neatly in one spot. Thanks to LoLo I can tie every knot known to a sailor, too. He used to keep me busy like that, sitting in his kitchen, tying knots while he cooked and talked to me. Never occurred to me until much later that he was killing two birds with one stone: keeping me occupied and out of trouble and making sure my fingers were becoming very limber and flexible, something that’s important if you’re going to be using knives. Oh, LoLo knew how to take care of an unruly kid, that’s for damn sure.

Wu was walking about, peering at things, his mouth pursed up. “Do you know how to use all these things? These tools, I suppose I should say.”

“Well, most of them. I’m mostly self-taught, though.”

He pointed at a large knife hanging from one of the hooks on the wall. “That’s not one of your personal knives, is it?”

“No, course not. That’s a machete, it’s for cutting down bushes and the like. So I can keep the path to the lake tidy, that sort of thing.” I grinned at him. “I’d have a time trying to keep that hidden on my person.”

He cocked his head at me. “Do you have your knives now?”

“What, you mean on me? Just one of my fan knives.” I shrugged. “We’re in the middle of nowhere and between Mako, Bolin and Opal - not to mention Juicy and Marezelle - I don’t think anyone would be sneaking up on us.”

“Did you wear your knives when it was just you and Mako here?”

“I pretty much always keep at least one on or near me.” I raised an eyebrow. “Why’re you asking?”

He shrugged. “I just wondered.”

Uh huh. “You just wondered.”

He came close to me, ran his hand down my lapel. “I just wondered if you were the same with Mako as you are with me.”

“Well, he’s a different person.”

Now the other lapel was getting fussed at. “Well, of course I know that.”

“Are you asking if I would defend Mako? I would if he needed me but I’m pretty sure Mako can handle himself.”

“That goes without saying, I’m sure.”

“Except you’re saying it. Spit it out, Wu, what is it you really want to be asking me?” I slid a hand around his waist, what there is of it. Too thin. “Come on, now.”

His cheeks went slightly pink, which meant he was thinking of something smutty. I can read the man like a book. “I’m merely trying to make conversation, Qi.”

I leaned in close to his ear, pulling him against me with both arms. “Are you asking if Mako and I were fucking up here?”

“QI!” His cheeks went even hotter. That’s what I thought.

“Because the answer to that is yes. So now I have a question. What’s up with those nail guards, hmmm?” I bit down on his ear, grinning around it as he gasped and gave me a little moan. “That’s not an answer.”

He shuddered just a little bit in my arms and then turned so he could whisper into my ear. “Why don’t you come to the Four Elements and find out?” And then he bit my ear in return. Oh, if the man wanted to play then I’d be more than happy to oblige. I picked him up - we’re about the same height but I swear he weighs no more than a puff of dust - and sat him down on the hood of Mako’s car, pulling him right back in close.

“You trying to tease me, boy?” I tipped his head over and went for his neck, kissing along it. The man’s got a beautiful long neck. I like it.

“You can’t call me that,” he said, getting a bit snitty, and I just pushed him down to the hood, laying atop him. His eyes were so big and green, and he was breathing real quick by then. He was getting hard under me, too.

“What you gonna do about it, hmmm?” I pulled his arms above his head and easily pinned his wrists down with one hand. Oh, he liked that, I could tell, he was pushing himself up into me, don’t even know if he knew he was doing it. “Don’t think you’re gonna do a damn thing. Are you, boy?” His eyes fluttered shut and I took my other hand and cupped him through his trousers. He arched up at that, moaning even more. Oh, it was working for me, it was. But I knew what was going to happen. He’d get himself all worked up, start playing with me until his brain kicked in and then we’d come to a screeching halt, the same way we always did. I was trying to be patient about it, I really was, but a body can get frustrated after a time, you know? Not to mention it hurt my feelings, much as I tried not to take it personal. But I had something in my mind, something that Mako had said, so I let go of him and stood back, left him laying there on the car, flushed and wanting. “Well, when you want to do something about it, you just give me a holler, boy.” I gave him a little salute as he started to look like a thunderstorm, gasping all pissy this time because he couldn’t believe I wasn’t doing what he wanted.

“Qi! QI!”

I turned my back on him and headed out of the stable. Damn me but I was wet. Kept walking, though.

“Qi Beifong! You come back here right this very instant!” Oh, he was good and riled up at me. Well. He can chew on that for awhile, see how he likes getting all worked up only to get let down. I love him, but I’m tired of him letting me down. He wants me, I know he does, if he can just get past the fact that I don’t have a cock. And like I said, I got a plan.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is what happens when people let their hair down.

Wu disappeared for awhile - off having a sulk, I’d guess - but showed back up again about the same time Mako and Bolin did, no fish in sight. Didn’t matter, we had plenty of food and Opal and I had put together a late lunch anyhow. Wu was very obviously avoiding me, asking Mako to ask me to pass him the sauce and that sort of thing, just like he was Meili having one of her little pouts. I was about to shove one of his dumplings where the sun don’t shine. I don’t know if it was my lack of sleep last night or what, but he was starting to get on my nerves. And usually my nerves are the one thing I can depend on!

Bolin asked me after lunch if we could spar for a bit. I’ve been working with him on hand-to-hand combat when he can’t really use his bending. Bolin’s hard to beat when he’s bending - that damn lava, what more do I need to say? - but without his bending and up close he’s slow and not much good. You can use chi blocking to stop your opponent completely in their tracks or you can use it just to target their bending, which is what I do with Bolin when we practice. So we all went out to the courtyard and I hit him in the right spot and then started to work with him.

I realized, as I was showing him a particular hold, that Wu’s never really seen us do this. I work with him at his place, for the most part, and so Wu’s never around. Bolin’s slow, it’s true, but he’s also wicked strong. When it comes to pure brute strength he’s a real powerhouse - the only two who come even close to him are Mako and Wei, and even at that I’d lay my yuan on Bolin every time. I don’t even bother trying to teach him my quicker moves, there’s just no point. But let me tell you, if he can get ahold of me the right way I’m never going to be able to break free, and I’m one twisty little fucker, believe me.

Mostly I’ve got him doing defensive moves with flat hands. Bolin’s a sweet little baby underneath all that muscle; unless you piss him off - and you have to work hard to piss him off, Mako got all the temper in that family - he doesn’t want to hurt people. So he’s real reluctant to punch folks. But a good hard shove with an open hand of his can send you flying, and I speak from experience. So I made sure he had a proper stance and then I came at him, slowly at first. Opal was calling encouragement and Mako was watching closely, taking notes, I knew. Wu was sitting on a chair he’d brought out from the kitchen, frowning at us.

Back and forth we went, me speeding up a bit, him trying to grab at me, mostly missing. Well, it’s a work in progress, that’s for sure. We’re just going to keep on trying with him, and it’s not like I mind. Keeps me limber, for sure, and I’m always happy to work with Bolin, he’s a good guy. Finally I clapped him on the back, told him to take a drink and take a break. Opal asked me if I was up for working with her for a bit and I was.

Now see, Opal’s tricky. Those airbenders, they move damn fast, and in some ways are just as twisty as I am. Even without her bending Opal’s nothing to sneeze at. I think it might surprise some people - Opal, on the surface, is a fairly petite woman and she doesn’t exactly throw off asskicking vibes, not the way Korra or Yumi do. Thing is, though, that her Mama worked with both Opal and her oldest brother when they were younger, didn’t want her nonbending kids to be helpless in a fight. And Su Beifong is not a lady I’d fuck around with. Both she and Lin are pretty astonishing earthbenders, for one thing, and for another, those women know how to lay it down. So Opal came into being an airbender already knowing some earth and metalbending tricks of the trade, and she’s not afraid to use them, either. She’s got some chops, in other words. I don’t come at her with anything but my full attention.

I let her warm up for a bit as I took a drink, gave some encouragement to Bolin. When she was ready, I blocked her bending and then the two of us went at it. It was quick and it was hard, too. Usually we work on mats but it was good to be out on the stone of the courtyard, took a little of the safety off of it. I nailed her with a roundhouse kick and knocked her on her ass; she got through my defenses with a flowing backwards elbow punch that got me square in the face. I kept going - I was well into it by then - but Mako stood up and called a time, nodding at me.

“You’re bleeding,” he said. “Let me take a look.”

“I’m fine,” I said, trying to wave him off, but Mako’s not one to give a shit about my protests.

“Ah! Sorry, Qi!” Opal peered at me. “I didn’t break it, did I?”

“Naw, naw, just a smack, I’m fine.” I batted at Mako’s hand, which had just brushed across it. “Ow! Damn, son! Don’t poke at it! I said it was fine!”

“Hold still,” he said, taking my jaw firmly, gently feeling at my nose. “No, doesn’t look like anything’s broken. We’d best put something cold on it, though.”

“I’ll go get some ice from the cellar,” Bolin said, and jogged off.

“Is this barbarism entirely necessary?” Wu’s voice was high and sharp, meaning he was upset. “If you cannot be more careful with Qi’s person then you should cease and desist, Opal!”

Opal blinked at him. “We were just sparring, Wu.” She gestured at me. “It was an accident.” She rubbed at her ass and gave a little chuckle. “I might need some of that ice myself, though.”

“Qi is bleeding!” Wu’s chest was heaving up and down.

“Hey, calm down. Noses bleed,” Mako said. “Wu, it happens. Nothing’s broken, no harm no foul. Qi can ice it for a bit until the bleeding stops and then they can finish up.”

“I’m fine,” I said. Again.

“I beg your pardon? I believe we have concluded today’s exercise in battering Qi.” His eyes were snapping, his mouth a thin red line. Oh, he was all worked up.

“Wu!” Mako was frowning at him. “It happens. What, did you think people practice fighting and never get banged up a little? Qi gets banged up all the time.”

“Not as much as Bolin does, believe me.” Opal smiled. “My poor sweetie.”

“He’s getting better, though. Didn’t you see him block my lunge? A month ago he couldn’t manage it at any speed.” I tried to mop at my nose with my sleeve, although it wasn’t helping. “Well, so much for this shirt.”

“Here.” Wu shoved one of his hankies at me. “Take it, you unmitigated ass.”

“Hey!” I said, more surprised than hurt. Wu isn’t one to curse, even something that mild. And that was the second time in as many days that someone had called me an ass, too.

“Don’t you hey me, Qi Beifong!” He shook his finger in my face. “I am very upset with you!” He whipped around and pointed that long finger at Opal, who took a step back, even. “And you! You, Opal Beifong! Do you think you can just strike the soon-to-be Royal Consort irrespective of consequence?”

Opal just blinked at him again. Not that I can blame her. Not every day that Wu actually starts cursing and finger shaking and name dropping, after all. Or at least not to Opal.

“Wu-” Mako started, and then it was his turn.

“And you! Do you condone this….this savagery?”

“You need to calm down.” Oh, Mako. There’s smart and then there’s asking for trouble, and this was not the first one, neither. Wu’s face started to get red.

“Calm down? Calm down! I’ll give you a calm down!”

Bolin jogged back over, holding a kitchen towel full of ice out to me. Last time she was here Korra saw they’d had a section of the cellar fitted out as an ice house back in the day and she was considerate enough to fill it for me. Handy having a waterbender about. Meili does ice up for LoLo whenever he needs it. I eased it on to my nose and took a seat down on the ground. I patted the stone next to me. “C’mere,” I said, my voice all clogged up. “Come on, I want you.”

“The ground is all dirty,” he said, and I could tell he was going to start crying.

“Go get my jacket then, put it down, sit on that. Come on, be a good boy, come and sit with me.”

“Your shirt is all bloody,” he said, staring at it. He’d gone from red to getting all pale under that pretty brown color of his. His eyes were filling up.

“I can take it off. Here.” I put aside the ice and yanked my shirt off. I don’t normally do that in front of folks, but I had on an undershirt and it was only Opal and Bolin, after all. I trust them. “Okay? See?”

Mako took it from me. “I can soak it in some cold water.”

“Come on, come sit with me.” Wu wobbled a little and then sat down carefully, turning up his nose a bit. The man doesn’t like dirt all that much. “Listen, I’m okay. Opal got through my guard and thumped me, but I’m fine. Nothing permanent and it’s not the worst I’ve ever gotten, believe me.”

“It’s not every day that one of us can get through Qi’s guard, either.” Opal sat down cross-legged across from him. “And there’s no point in me trying the same move again because you’ll only get something past Qi once.” She smiled at me, and I tipped her a wink over the ice.

Bolin settled down next to him with a thud that we could feel. Like a damn komodo rhino taking a seat, I swear. “Nosebleeds always look worse than they are. Once I got a stray disc to the face when I was pro-bending and I swear, I was like a faucet for an hour. Remember that, Mako?”

Mako smiled a little. “I remember you passed out,” he said, and then walked over to where the pump was, putting my shirt in the trough there and grabbing the handle. “Wu, sometimes it happens. We’re three benders and Qi, and we train and we fight and it happens.” He glanced over. “It’s not like it was in Ba Sing Se,” he said quietly, and a tear slid down Wu’s face. “We’re not really trying to hurt each other.”

“Oh Wu, did you think I was trying to hurt Qi?” Opal put a hand on his ankle. “I wasn’t, I truly wasn’t. We were just sparring.”

“I know you weren’t really trying,” and here a few more tears splashed down, “but it’s…it’s very upsetting.”

Bolin put a very easy arm around him. “None of us would ever really hurt Qi.” He thought for a moment. “I mean, I say that, but the truth of the matter is that even if I was bending I’d have a hard time catching Qi.”

Opal nodded. “You were taking it easy on me, weren’t you?”

“Just until you got good and warmed up,” I said. I shifted the ice, checking to see if the bleeding was tapering off any.

Mako came back over and sat down next to Opal. “Wu, you have to understand that Qi’s not especially vulnerable. Not even to benders. They’ve even gotten the best of Korra a few times and trust me, that’s not something most people can do.”

“You say that, but an airbender can pull the air right out of your body.” Wu was shaking now. I wanted to hold him but my nose was still bleeding and I thought I might make it worse.

“Oh Wu, we don’t do that! Oath of nonviolence, remember?” Opal had both her hands on him now.

“Not all of them swear it.” Now he was doing that snotty thing he does when he cries.

“Yeah well, Zaheer was Zaheer. He’s never getting out and even if he did, Korra would be after him in a heartbeat.” Mako leaned forward to thumb away a tear. “You know Opal wouldn’t do that to anybody, never mind Qi. And in any case, her bending was blocked.”

“I know you think I’m stupid,” Wu sobbed, and Bolin pulled him in for a big squeeze. Wu squeaked a little.

“Nobody thinks that.”

“I know Opal wouldn’t really.”

“Yeah, but scared is scared. It doesn’t always make sense.” Bolin very nicely patted him on the back.

“I don’t think I can watch any more sparring.” He honked very loudly into his hankie.

“No, we’re done for today,” I said, and caught Opal’s eye. She nodded at me.

“Listen, I have an idea. I was saving it for tonight, but let’s go inside, hmm? Qi can get cleaned up a little and I can get changed out of this sweaty wingsuit. Meet me on the sofas?” Opal heaved herself up. “Sweetie, would you check on Juicy for me?”

“Happy to oblige a lovely lady,” Bolin said, and let go of Wu to jump up and make her a theatrical bow, complete with mustache twirling.

“You go clean up, I’ll deal with Wu,” Mako said. Wu looked a little put out at that; not that I blame him, mind. Mako’s a damn good man but he’s not exactly known for putting things gently. Nobody wants to hear they’re going to be dealt with, after all. Especially after they’ve been crying.

By the time I got upstairs my nose had pretty much stopped bleeding; it really was fine, hardly hurt at all. And Opal’s right, she won’t get that move past me again. It was a good one, though. I’ll remember it for myself. I washed up my face and hands and such, put on a clean shirt and trousers, made myself as presentable as I get. It’s not like I’m exactly pretty to look at; face too long, cheekbones too sharp, got a gap in my front teeth you could drive a truck through. Got kind of swampy colored eyes, too, nothing like Wu’s bright green or those clear, deep brown eyes that Jinora’s got. Boring beige skin, even more boring dark brown hair. Can’t make a silk purse out of a picken’s ear, as they say, but I figure I can dress up if I like to. And I do like to, as it happens. Wearing sharp looking clothes is like its own kind of armor. And when I come up with something new and go out in it, people are staring at me because I want them to. And that, I will confess, is a feeling I like just fine.

When I made it out to the great room they were all sitting there on the sofas, and Opal waved a silver water pipe at me.

“Looky what I’ve got,” she sang out, grinning. “Compliments of Huan.” He and Ikki had gotten introduced to something the locals up there in the mountains called ditchweed, you could smoke it much like opium. Can’t say I’m a fan of opium - I know it’s good for healing but I’ve seen first hand how it does for people back in the neighborhood I come from, and it’s nothing but bad news - but this stuff was pretty mild and harmless, I’d tried it once or twice with Wei.

“Fucking Beifongs,” said Mako, shaking his head, but he was smiling, leaning back, one arm casually thrown around Wu. He patted the seat on the other side of him for me.

“Wing’s been trying to grow it in his garden, you know how he is. He wants to see if he can improve it.”

“It’s the only thing I’ve ever seen relax Baatar,” Bolin said, spreading his hands out. “I never thought that was possible.” Opal shot him a look at that. Those Beifongs are real tetchy when it comes to their oldest brother. “Naw, don’t glare, Opie. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Hmph,” she said, but she let it go. Good thing. Opal on a tear is something else, believe me. Much like her Auntie.

I don’t usually do anything when Wu’s around - anything that could slow down my response time is right out the window, and that includes alcohol, too - but I thought we were safe enough up here. Besides, I had three master-level benders in the room with me. I’m good, but I ain’t no bender, you know? Yumi’d taught me how to chi block right off the bat but even still. That’s just a fact of life for nonbenders. Not fair, maybe, and I still think that Amon fellow had some ideas about bender and nonbender equality worth exploring, but life’s life. What can you do? At least that’s how I’ve always seen it.

Wu made me want to laugh the way he looked so prissy with the pipe, but I knew better than to do it. He only took one hit and then frowned, passing it back over. I think he’d rather have champagne, when it comes right down to it. Opal had her fingers tangled up in Bolin’s hair, and he had pulled her into his lap. I know a lot of people think that Bolin’s not the brightest bulb out there, but I don’t think that’s true. It does take him longer to get to where most of us are going, no arguing that. But he not only gets there, he often gets there with a lot of insight that most other people don’t bother with, if they can even manage it. Bolin sees the world a little different than the most of us. It’s true he doesn’t have much in the way of filters - the man just up and says things, and sometimes that can run all over what society likes to consider polite - but I’ve never seen him be deliberately rude to anyone. And he loves his wife, so much. I know folks don’t get what Opal sees in him most times but I do. He’s a good man and he treats her and the kids like gold. Don’t really know how much more you can ask than that. Sometimes it’s not all about wit or polish, and Opal clearly sees beyond all of that.

Also, the man does what she tells him to, and let me just say I think that’s a good thing when it comes to those Beifong women. LoLo likes to tease Lin - and much as she gripes it’s clear she likes it when he does, that’s just how the two of them play with each other - but he knows where her line in the sand is and he respects it, full stop. Opal’s a nice woman and as I said, I like her a lot, but I would not fuck with her. She was good and relaxed now, though, giggling at her husband while he made calf eyes at her.

We weren’t really talking about much of anything - Bolin was going on about the new mover he was making, just idly chatting, he’s never very comfortable with silence, any more than Wu is - and even Wu had relaxed enough to actually look over at me, when Mako out of nowhere up and said, “So Qi thinks I should quit my job.”

That shut everyone up. All eyes went right to me. “Uh, I think there’s a little more to it than that.” Thanks a whole lot, Mako.

Wu actually perked up a little from his spot where he was practically falling over Mako. “Oh, I approve. Let’s do that. You can stay home with me all day.”

Mako made a face that showed exactly how little he thought of that idea. Thankfully Wu missed it or else there would have been two of us getting an earful from the man.

“That’s a thing,” Bolin said, and took another hit off the pipe before handing it to Mako. “A thingy-thing-thing. Huh. Maybe we should all quit our jobs. Should I quit my job, Easy-Breezy?”

“No,” Opal said.

“I’ve never liked that job,” Wu announced, as if we all didn’t know it already. “High time you quit.”

“Don’t you even want to know why?” Mako said. We waited. And waited. And waited some more. He was gathering his thoughts or something, but it was taking awhile.

“Did I miss something?” Bolin looked around at all of us.

“Oh for the love of…” I sighed and poked Mako in the side. He just grunted. “Look, fine. Mako’s partner is getting assigned to a desk job and they are going to assign him a rookie to train and he doesn’t want to do it.”

Three blank faces looked back at me. At some point Wu had taken off his glasses, so his was more of a blank squint.

“Uh…yeaaaaaaaah.” Bolin nodded for a good ten seconds before shaking his head. “Nope. Didn’t catch any of that.”

“Maybe we can talk about it later.” It was my own fault for only taking a single hit off the damn thing, I hardly felt anything. “Hand that over, Opal.” She waved it in the air and I leaned over and took it from her, took in a deep pull. I was tired of being let out of the fun all the time.

“Qi says I should maybe be a private detective.”

“Oh! I’m a private detective!” Bolin sat up. He was talking about his mover role of Yoshitoki, Private Eye For Hire. “I can give you tips.” He pointed at Mako. “First things first, you need to grow a mustache.”

“Oh no, I don’t like facial hair,” Wu said, waving his hand in the air. “I’m too delicate for all of that hispidulous nonsense. I don’t approve of mustaches.”

“It’s the law,” Bolin informed him, and Wu looked alarmed.

“Will they take him off to the hoosegow?” He smacked Mako’s arm. “You could write to me from prison, I could put it in a book! It would be auth…ah…um…”

“Authentic,” I said.

“Oh. Yes. Authentic. Or I could have used genuine, I suppose. Although authentic has a nicer ring to it.”

“I don’t want a mustache,” Mako said, frowning. “I don’t like ‘em. And anyhow, it’s not against the law.” He pointed at Bolin. “And you’re not a real detective.” The finger went towards Wu. “And I’ve already been in jail, remember?” He looked glum. “People are always putting me in jail.”

“S’okay, you can borrow some of my mustache oil.” Bolin ignored what he had said, stroking at his own. It’s a pretty impressive mustache, I’ll give him that. “Women love it.”

“It’s true,” Opal threw in. “I love it.”

“Men too, come to think of it,” Bolin added, looking thoughtful.

“Well, I don’t,” said Wu, and Mako took the pipe out of my hands and handed it to him.

“Do you love it?” Bolin was looking at me.

“Eh…” I said. “I don’t really care one way or the other.”

“Listen, are we talking about my job or not?” 

“Well, what’s there to talk about?” Wu sniffed. “I told you, I approve. Just quit.” Mako looked unhappy at that, sitting back. Bolin was watching him, and he nodded a few times before speaking.

“What’s a job, anyhow?”

Mako sat there, trying to work through it for a minute. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Is it a lifestyle? Is it a life? Or is it just…” Bolin leaned forward, looking around like he had a secret. “A job?”

“What?” Mako’s look was pretty damn funny. Or apparently I thought so because I surely was laughing at it.

“That’s right, sweetie.” Opal patted him. “I like your mustache.”

“Wait, are we talking about mustaches again?” Poor Mako grabbed at his nose. “I thought we were talking about my job.”

“Well I don’t want to talk about jobs or mustaches.” Wu was pouting. “Or sparring.” He shot me a look over Mako’s chest.

“Nobody’s talking about sparring, Wu.”

“We live our lives. But do we job our jobs? What if we job our lives? Or live our jobs?”

“What?”

“I like his mustache because it tickles.” Opal giggled. She shook her finger at Wu. “You should try it, Wu. It tickles down there.” She pointed to show where she meant.

“Oh!” Wu’s hands flew up to his mouth, and that was pretty funny too.

“Write that in your book,” she said, and pointed at her husband’s face. “Tickle, tickle, tickle.”

“And maybe we can be it all. Our lives, our jobs, our…lobs? Jives?”

“Why am I here?” Mako asked, and Bolin nodded.

“Why are any of us here, really,” he answered, and then put his hands together and gave Mako a little seated bow.

I don’t even know what nonsense we got into. Nothing permanent; Opal got more giggly (and so did I), Wu got to demanding something to eat and when Mako brought us all some food ate so much I think he nearly popped, Mako mellowed out and got even more blunt than usual and Bolin…you know, I don’t really know that I noticed all that much difference in Bolin, truth be told. It wasn’t a bad thing, but I don’t think it was my thing. I just don’t like feeling out of control that way, even though it was nice to feel like I could sit there with all of them and fit in. Opal even started to get a little flirty with me. I’m not usually one to go for women, but she was putting me in mind of Huan and just between us, I’ve always been more than a little bit attracted to old Huan, there. There’s always been something about him that gets my motor running. When it comes down to it I suppose Ikki wouldn’t mind but Wu would most likely tear it up. He likes to think of himself as open-minded but he’s not really, not when you come down to it. I know he’s put out that Mako and I are sleeping together without him, although of course he won’t say it. He just wants us to know it and then do what he wants without him having to actually deal with it. Let’s just say that there are some times when it’s easier to remember he was a king than others.

Funny thing was that all of Opal getting flirty with me - and sure, I’ll admit it, I was getting a little flirty back, a body can let their hair down and have fun every once in awhile - was getting Mako all worked up. I know people look at him and think he’s got an entire forest lodged up his ass but that’s not altogether true. Mako hates change and hates it when things are out of his control, too. But when it comes to things like love and affection - and sex, that too - Mako’s just fine with it. At one point she’d switched over and was sitting in my lap - she smells like flowers, don’t know if it’s a perfume or if it’s just her, but it was making me feel a little dizzy, in a good way, mind - and he was shooting us looks, all narrow-eyed and fired up. I don’t think Bolin noticed a thing, bless the man, he was chattering on about some stupid-ass invention of Varrick’s but suddenly Wu stopped shoveling food into his face and pointed at us.

“You unhand my Qi this very instant, Opal Beifong!”

Fact of the matter was that I was doing more of the handing, but Wu’s never been one to worry about the small details. Opal just sniffed at him and did that hand-waving thing all those Beifongs are famous for. I keep thinking I ought to practice it, seeing as I’m the next head of the family. So I took one of my hands off of her waist and copied her movement. That set the two of us off laughing.

Wu did his very best royal glare. With his cravat hanging off his neck and his hair stuck up on one side and a smear of sauce across his chin, not to mention no glasses, it came off pretty funny. “You look like a shirshu,” I said, and then Opal and I practically fell off the sofa with that one.

“Mako! They’re being rude! And far too familiar! Do something!” Wu was pointing at us.

“What do you want me to do about it?”

Well, he was stumped for that. “Something,” he muttered, and then crossed his arms over his chest and pouted, just like Meili. “My Qi,” he said, lower lip poking out.

Opal jabbed her finger into my forehead. “Oooooh, you are so busted! They’ll take you off to prison!” She leaned into me. “They took my brother off to prison and I missed him. Fuck those guys.”

“Yeah, fuck ‘em,” I said, and then we laughed about that too.

“Bolin! Your wife is sitting in my Qi’s lap!”

Bolin peered at us. “Huh.”

“Sweetie, I think I’m going to put Qi on my exceptions list, okay?”

Bolin looked at her like she hung the moon. “Okay, Easy-Breezy.”

Wu’s mouth dropped open. It was full of what I thought might be chewed up paper but I have to tell you, I wasn’t quite in my right mind at the moment, so don’t take my word on it. “Mako!”

Mako sighed, and then plucked Opal out of my lap, dumping her in Bolin’s. “Well, hey there,” he said to her, looking happy. “Where’d you come from?” He then picked up Wu and dumped him in mine.

“There,” he said, and flopped back down on the sofa next to us. “All fixed.”

“Hi,” I said, grinning at Wu like a damn fool. “You’re pretty cute.”

Wu opened his mouth to say something but Mako shoved a dumpling on in there.

“Maybe I should take you into my room and take your clothes off.” I gave his bony little ass a squeeze and he squeaked for me, this time.

“Yeah, you do it, Qi!” Opal giggled. “Bolin, do you want to take me to our room and take my clothes off?”

Bolin considered this for a minute. “Well, sure.” He just sat there, though, until Opal smacked his thigh.

“Bolin!”

“What?”

“Take me to our room and take my clothes off!”

“You mean now?” The poor man looked confused.

“Yes!”

“Oh, okay.” He stood up, Opal in his arms, and started to head towards a hallway.

“Wrong way,” Mako said, pointing the opposite way. “That’s our room.”

“Wait, what?”

“Just…go there. Where I’m pointing.”

“Right, right, gotcha.” Bolin gave us all a little wave and headed on out in the right direction this time. I looked down at Wu. He was still chewing on the dumpling, looking all mussed up and awful cute, if I do say so myself. I licked the sauce right off his chin and he opened those big eyes at me and gasped.

“Whatchu say, hmmm? Pretty boy? You want me to take you to my bed and take your clothes off?” I kissed the corner of his mouth. I would have kissed more of it but he was still chewing and that’s just nasty.

“Oh, Qi-” he started, but apparently Mako wasn’t going to wait for him to finish, because with one single heave he picked the both of us up, me still holding on to Wu, and made a direct line for the bedroom. Not before Wu leaned down, though, grabbing the last of the dumplings and shoving it into his mouth.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, you need to say what you mean.

I was too busy marveling at the fact that Mako could easily carry the both of us at the same time - true enough that Wu weighs practically nothing, but even so - that I didn’t even protest when he dumped us on the bed. He shoved us apart, put us where he wanted and then plopped himself into the middle, locking his fingers under his head, looking very satisfied with himself.

“There,” he said. “I think the two of you should kiss. I can watch.” I shot Mako a look at that.

“Uh huh.”

He just grinned at me, though, and gestured with his fingers. “I’m waiting.”

I had to laugh. “What, you think you get something for nothing? That’s not how it works where we come from, old son.”

“True,” he said.

“I beg your pardon,” Wu started, and I leaned over Mako.

“I wish you would. Bet you’re real pretty when you beg.”

Wu’s mouth dropped open at that one. “Qi!”

“He really is.”

“Mako!” His chin stuck right out, his cheeks pinking up. “What has gotten into the two of you! I’m not going to kiss Qi while you watch!” Thing is, though, that he was sputtering and all, but his body wasn’t moving. He was still draped over Mako. I’m the first one to admit that I don’t know a whole lot about Wu in the bedroom, Mako’s got me beat on that one. But I do know him pretty well otherwise, and his body was telling me he wasn’t as mad as he was pretending. Wu’s got a way about him - he likes to stick to what he calls protocol and what I privately think of as His Very Royal Majesty’s High And Mighty Ways - but sometimes it’s more about what he thinks he should do rather than what he wants to do, if that makes sense. I guess we’re all who we were raised, when it comes right down to it, and he was raised to be a king, with a lot of rules about what that meant. My plan was that maybe Mako could help me out with it. I was going to try and get him aside and ask him in private, but it looked like I wouldn’t need to. I’m not much for letting people take charge of things, but Mako’s nobody’s fool. I figured I could let him drive this train for a time. So I just took a deep breath, tried to relax, and left it into his hands.

“What, do you want me to kiss Qi instead? Okay.” And with that he turned his back on Wu, took me in his arms and laid one on me. I’ve mentioned before the man knows his way around a kiss, yeah? Yeah. So that was happening. Next thing I realize, he’d got half the buttons of my shirt undone without even coming up for air. That takes some practice, I tell you. Not sure I could manage it myself, and I’m good with my hands.

Wu, of course, wasn’t having it. He purely hates it when he’s not the center of everybody’s attention. “Mako!” He smacked at Mako’s arm to get his attention but he ignored him to keep kissing me. “Stop that right now!”

He pulled away long enough to say, “Nope,” and then dove right on back in. Wu made a lot of his angry noises - I’m pretty sure I heard the words “Atrocious effrontery,” and had a hard time not laughing - but Mako just tightened one hand on me in warning when he felt me start to pull away a bit.

“I’m certainly not going to stay here and be insulted like this!”

“Okay,” Mako said, and quick as anything, let go of me and went for Wu’s clothes, getting rid of his cravat first, before kissing him as well. “Better?”

“Oh Mako,” Wu said, all breathless, his eyes closing. “I’m not sure we should…”

“I’m sure,” he said, and got Wu’s jacket off of him. He gave me a look. “Don’t wait on ceremony,” he told me, nodding at my shirt. “Or do I have to do all the work here?” I figured I was all in, so I stripped it off and sent my undershirt on after it. Mako’d managed to get Wu down to his undershirt at this point, and had gotten rid of his socks and slippers, too. Fast worker, our Mako. Comes from having kids, I reckon. Getting a toddler in and out of clothes is not as easy as some might think.

We were doing pretty well with it, all things considering. Mako was having the time of his life, managing buttons, hands all over the both of us, ordering us about, doing what he does best. I was down to not a stitch and my motor was running, wet as anything. Wu still had on his shorts but he was all flushed, his hair near standing up on end, mouth all swollen up with Mako’s kisses. Mako had finally ordered him into kissing me, and he was watching us do it, scarred hand busy with my nipples, the other busy with the big bulge in Wu’s shorts, looking so pleased with himself it was making it hard for me to keep from laughing, despite the fact that I was about ready to bust with wanting the both of them. Wu had put his hand on my other breast and I was just thinking to myself that we were clearly in business when he broke free, nearly tumbling ass over teakettle across the bed trying to get away from me.

“I can’t,” he said, and put up his hands like he needed to defend himself from me, like I was going to force myself on him or something. “I just can’t.”

Now here’s something about me. I don’t have much of a temper. That don’t mean I don’t get angry, from time to time - I can and do get angry. But generally speaking I keep my head, even when I'm pissed off at the world. Maybe it came out of how I grew up - never do to let your guard down in my old neighborhood and too much emotion does away with your guard - or maybe it was just me. Don’t know, and I guess it doesn’t really matter at this point. What I’m trying to say is that I hardly ever lose my cool.

Well, I did say hardly. Because right in that very moment, my cool went right out the window, gone before I’d even realized what was happening. “Fuck you!” I spat out, feeling like my head was going to explode. “Fuck you sideways, Wu!”

If I hadn’t been in such a state I might have stopped right then and there at how shocked and hurt Wu looked. He gasped, hands flying up to his mouth, tears starting up in his eyes. Reckon he’s never had me cuss at him like that.

“Qi! Whoa!” Mako was trying to sit up, blinking at how fast the mood had gone south. “Hey now, take it easy.”

I pointed my finger straight at Wu. I was so mad that my gutter accent was right back at home. “I’m sick to death of you playin’ like I mean somethin’ to you and then crawlin’ away from me like I was covered in rot! You don’t like me? You think I’m ugly?” I slammed my fists into my chest, too upset to notice then that I was hurting myself. “Think I’m stupid? Think I don’t see?” I was crying, but I didn’t even know it. “Think I ain’t got no pride? Think it don’t hurt me none? Think I got no feelings?” I jumped off the bed and yanked over my trousers, shoving my legs into them, not even bothering to do them up. “I got news for you. I already know I’m ugly, don’t need you to prove it to me none. At least Mako, at least he wants me, don’t look at me like I’m a fish gone bad.” I shoved my arms through my undershirt. It was on inside out but I didn’t notice and wouldn’t have cared if I had. “Don’t know why you signed that fucking marriage contract with me when clearly you don’t want nothin’ to do with me.” I lunged at him, lickitysplit, moved so fast that he just stood there, not knowing what to do, me right up in his face. “You take that fucking contract and you shove it right up your royal ass,” I snarled at him, feeling like I wanted to hurt something - anything - just to make all the hurt inside of me go away.

He was trembling, though, those eyes of his huge and scared. Of me! He was scared of me! And why shouldn’t he have been? What was I doing but scaring the life out of him? Mako had slid off the bed and had his hands raised up where I could see them, coming very slowly towards us. I couldn’t stand it, I just couldn’t. Even Mako thought I was going to hurt him, Wu, the person I loved more than anybody else in this whole damn world. So before I said or did anything more that I’d regret I just turned on my heel and headed straight for the door, not even knowing where I was going, just knowing that I needed to get out, right then and there. I heard Wu call my name in such a heartbroken way that it damn near stopped me in my tracks, but I kept on moving. I needed to get ahold of myself.

I walked down the hallway, out through the great room and the front door, not even knowing where I was headed, just moving forward, the sound of my own breathing loud in my ears. I wasn’t purposefully headed for my lake but I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when I ended up on the shore, standing on the ruins of that old pavilion, my knees giving way, spilling me down to the rock. I sat there trying to calm myself down, trying to remind myself to be one with nature or whatever you do with that meditation hoopla the airbenders are always trying to sell people on. I was disappointing myself, for sure. Normally I don’t let things get to me, you know? Normally I can handle whatever comes my way. But I just didn’t know what to do about all of the hurt I was feeling. I didn’t know how to keep my nerves and I sure as shit didn’t know how to fix it. I buried my face into my arms and tried, best I could, to get myself back on an even keel. It wasn’t working, mind. But I was trying. I sat there for a time, feeling ashamed and still more than a bit angry, not knowing what I should do.

I knew it was him approaching me, walking down the path. You think I don’t recognize, after all this time, the sound of his walk? He’s light on his feet, usually sort of bouncing along. Not so much bouncing right then, though.

“Qi,” he said, and his voice was real quiet. Nervous. He doesn’t get that way all that often, but I know it, right enough. “May I…may I please sit next to you?”

I waved my hand and let him take that as he would. He clearly took it as a yes, seeing as he sat down next to me. I could see, through a gap in my arms, that his feet were bare. Surprised the ever living shit out of me, if I’m being honest. He never even walks around the house in his bare feet, never mind the dirt and stones on the way down to the lake.

He was quiet for a moment. “I…” He trailed off a little. There was a silence. Not really a comfortable one, mind. I was too het up to say anything to make it easier on him and he’s too used to people smoothing things over without him having to do much about it. He had at least come after me, though. I’ll give him that. “I know we are to be married soon-”

“We’re already married. We signed that paperwork. Lawyer’s office? There was a judge there? Both of us signed it, as you might recall.” I still wasn’t looking at him.

“Well…yes of course, I know that. I just meant after the wedding itself. In Ba Sing Se-”

“We don’t live in Ba Sing Se,” I said. Rudely. Not one of my finer moments.

“I…yes, I know.” He swallowed, I could hear it. “I just meant that in Ba Sing Se marriages are not considered complete until the wedding ceremony itself. It’s not uncommon for people to be legally married but to reside for several years elsewhere until they are of age, for example.”

“You mean that the nobility does that. Reckon in the Lower Ring that’s not how it goes. Sure ain’t how it went where I come from. Most folk there don’t even bother with marriage. My Mama surely didn’t.”

“No. I do...I do know that, Qi.” He shifted a little. “I’m just trying to explain.”

“What, that we’re all supposed to just know your royal ways and live that way? I already knew that, thanks.”

“Qi, I’m trying. I know you’re angry but I am trying.” Unlike his usual bossy tone he actually sounded sorry. I peeked over at him. He’d thrown his trousers back on and his silk undershirt. That’s it. His hair was a tumbled, curly mess, and he obviously hadn’t found his glasses. He looked about twelve years old. If anything convinced me that he was trying, it was that. Wu never went anywhere, not even into the next room, without making sure he was totally put together. He wasn’t looking at me, though, just staring down at his hands. Not sure how much he could see without his glasses, anyhow. “When I realized that you were sleeping with Mako I…” he trailed off again, and I almost said something, but decided the least I could do was hear him out. “I was upset.” He waved his hands back and forth. “Not because you needed to ask my permission, we spoke of that earlier. I don’t mean that.”

I waited for him to finish, but he was quiet again. “What do you mean then?”

He shoved at the rock with his toes and I realized he looked miserable. “Qi, I know I can’t really measure up to him.”

I mistook his meaning. “What, that old thing? Never could figure out why men get so worked up about it. Whores always used to say it ain’t the size of the boat, but the motion of the ocean.”

“I beg your…oh!” He blushed like a peony. “Oh no, I didn’t mean that! Or not exactly that.” He shot me a very quick look. “I meant I didn’t have his experience in that particular area, as it were.”

“Oh.”

“Gracious, Qi!”

“How was I supposed to know?” I shifted a little. “It’s not like I have any more than you do. I kept away from all of that. For a lot of reasons.”

“Yes, but Mako…well. Mako is Mako. I’m sure he didn’t have any difficulties.” We both sat there for a moment, in agreeable silence over Mako. He doesn’t have any difficulties in that area. His boat is a battleship and he moves the ocean like a master waterbender. I’m just saying. “In any case. I felt…well. You know.”

“No, I don’t know. Which is why I am listening to you tell me.”

“This conversation is making me feel uncomfortable!”

I gave him a hard look at that one. “Not as uncomfortable as it is when you get naked and someone loses interest in you.”

“Oh, Qi! No! No, that’s not it at all, I’m trying to tell you!” He put his fingertips up to his forehead. “I think you know, perhaps, that we have the custom of the marriage bed in the Earth Kingdom?” He started turning a little pink again, like he always does when he’s talking about anything at all related to sex. Kind of a funny thing for a man who writes the kinds of books that he does, but that’s my Wu. “After the actual marriage ceremony itself a married woman will make up the marriage bed and children will decorate it. It’s to promote a good, fertile marriage. I had always assumed Nuo and the girls would do it for us.” Now his color got even redder. “The marriage is to be consummated there. You’re meant to stay there for at least a few days, they bring you meals in bed, that sort of thing.”

I stared at him. “So this is why you won’t sleep with me? This is your grand plan?”

“Well, I…” he shrugged like it didn’t matter that he’d clearly been expecting this to happen.

“Did you do that with Mako?”

“Of course not!”

I sighed. “And why not?”

“Gracious, Mako would have…well.”

“Mako would have given you an earful about stupid, outdated Ba Sing Se customs, you mean.”

He refused to look at me. “Perhaps.”

“And you think I won’t?”

He looked at me then. His eyes were all shiny with tears. “You never make fun of my stupid, outdated Ba Sing Se customs.”

I made a mental note to talk to Mako about this later. He’s a good man and a good husband, but he’s not very sensitive on his own. Sometimes you have to shove his nose in it before he sees things. I didn’t for one second think he’d mock Wu if he thought he was actually hurting him. He just isn’t very good at knowing where that line is. “So let me get this straight. You wanted to have this marriage bed custom after our wedding and that’s why you’ve been backing off of me?”

“Maybe.” His voice was hardly more than a whisper. I reached out and smoothed down one of those curls he hates but that I love.

“Wu, I wouldn’t make fun. But I didn’t know. You have to talk to me about these things. I know you were raised to having your every want and need cared for without asking. But honey, I’m not a palace servant. I’m just street trash from Republic City. I try and read as much as I can about your life there, but there’s so much I don’t know. This isn’t the first time this has happened and I’d lay down all my yuan it won’t be the last, either. You have to talk to me.” I cupped his chin in my hand. “It’s not fair of you to expect me to just know things without you telling me. And if you do expect that we’re going to have a million more of these fights. I got feelings and that includes my pride too, you know. It ain’t royal, but it’s there.”

Now he was crying full out. “You went and slept with Mako and I…” He felt around for a hankie but of course didn’t have one in his undershirt.

“Oh, Wu. I didn’t know. And neither did he. You have to talk to us.”

“And now you’ll be so disappointed with me,” he wailed, snot starting to come out of his nose.

“No, honey, no no no. No, I won’t.” I pulled him into my arms, let him snot all over my undershirt.

“You will, you will,” he sobbed, getting me good and damp. “I’m not like Mako and I don’t…”

“Hey now,” I pushed him away from me, gentle-like, and gave him a little shake. “You stop that nonsense. I don’t want you to be Mako. I want you to be you. Always have. Always will. I know you don’t have much experience. Neither do I, when it comes right down to it. We’ll figure it out.” I grinned at him. “People do, people being people and all.”

“I do want you, you must know. Sometimes I think about going into your bedroom late at night and…” his face went red again. “Well, you know.”

“Do I, though?” My grin got bigger as his face got redder. I would never make fun of his stupid, outdated Ba Sing Se customs but the day I stop teasing him is the day you can put me in my grave.

“Qi!”

There’s things in my life I love. I love my car, I love the feel of silk against my skin, LoLo’s fried sesame seed balls with red bean paste that he makes special for me because he loves me, the powerful look on Naoki’s face when she’s bending. I love the way Mako’s eyes crinkle up when he thinks something’s funny, how Wei’s laugh booms out of him, the way the baby rests her head against my chest, Zhi’s sweet, sweet smile. I even love Lin’s glare of disgust when she grunts at us that’s her way of telling us she’s fond of us despite herself. But oh, I love the scandalized way Wu says my name when I’m teasing him, the way he gives a little gasp first, like he needs an extra little bit of breath in order to show me how outrageous I’m being. I’d drag myself dying through fire just to hear it, I would.

“So what you’re saying here is that you don’t want me trying to tease you into bed until the actual ceremony happens?”

He shot me a look up through those long, dark eyelashes of his. I know a lot of people who’d kill for those eyelashes. “I didn’t say that.”

“Uh huh.” I ran two fingers along his jaw. “So I can keep trying?” He caught his breath at that. “Because I have to tell you, I surely do like trying.”

“I like it when you try,” he said, biting down on his lip, all pretty and soft. “And oh, Qi, seeing you with Mako on the bed…” he swallowed.

“I gotcha, I gotcha.” I leaned up close, right into his ear. “You know what he fucks like, don’t you? Now I do too.” He made one of his breathy little moans at that. I like that noise, I’ll have you know. I didn’t care that he had a snotty red nose, either. “Don’t know why you can’t watch if you want to. If putting your prick in me is the cost of that ceremony, then fine. But can’t we have some fun before then? Or are you telling me that all of them Queens and Kings and the rest never fooled around some?”

He clutched at my undershirt. “Well, there was nothing saying that they couldn’t have concubines before marriage. In fact, it was looked well upon. My great-great-grandfather’s first child was with his favorite concubine before he married my great-great-grandmother, after all.”

“Interesting. So you’re saying if I was your concubine this wouldn’t be an issue,” I said, meaning it as a joke. He pulled back though, and gave me one of the fiercest looks he’s ever given me.

“You are not my concubine. You are my consort. My royal consort.” His hand went up to my face, and he wouldn’t let me look away. “If I were still on the throne you’d be my queen. My co-ruler. Do you understand what I am saying?”

I stared back at him. I knew he wasn’t trying to insult me by calling me a queen - he knows I don’t identify that way. It's the language's fault, not his. I knew what he was getting at. “But you married Mako first. And Wu, I could never be a queen. I’m the fatherless sprog of a whore.”

“And my grandmother was a kitchen maid from the Lower Ring.”

“She was the consort, though. Not the first wife.”

“Not by my grandfather’s choice, believe me. And she was the mother of the heir, that takes priority.” He smiled. “Her blood is in me too, Qi. My grandfather was a Hou-Ting and my mother was as noble as she could have possibly been, with royal blood from both the Earth Kingdom as well as the Northern Water Tribe. But I’ve also got the blood of a peasant in me.” His fingers brushed across my mouth. “I love Mako, so much. I have loved him as long as I have known him. And he’s a brilliant man, a brilliant bender. But he wouldn’t make a good queen. Prince. You know what I mean.” I nodded, I knew. “But you? Oh, my Qi. You would have been ruthless. You would have ruled that palace with an iron fist, you would have walked into a room full of my advisors and stopped them dead in their tracks, the way I never could. I may have been raised to it, true. But you would have carried that Kingdom at my side, making up for everything I always lacked.”

Wu has an accent, when he speaks. People in Ba Sing Se, they speak more slowly than we do in Republic City; they take more time with their words, even the folks from the Lower Ring. Their vowels are rounder and fuller than ours, too. Wu though, his accent is gold-plated. It’s perfectly clear, each word shaped and polished, like the emeralds in his royal crest. His speaking voice is beautiful, and he uses words like weapons. I always know what he’s feeling through the words he’s using. The more wordy he gets, the stronger he’s feeling, be it angry or sad or even happy. He sometimes gets so sharp with his words he can flay folks into ribbons, tear them apart faster and deadlier than any bender alive. The Grand Secretariat sounds like him, though, and I asked Mako once about the old Queen and he told me she’d sounded just the same.

How had his grandmother sounded, I always wondered, that kitchen maid dressed up in those rich halls of the palace? Had she tried to smooth out her accent like I had? Did it get away from her when she got riled up, like mine does? Or had she just kept her old accent, defiant to the last? I wish I knew. But everyone who ever knew her is dead now, short of the Grand Secretariat. And I don’t know that I’d feel comfortable asking him.

“Do you remember what the Princess said to her driver in _All Roads Lead to Desire?_ The scene in the inn, after they’d run away and were in hiding?” He was still touching my face.

I knew, alright. “Something about seeing her, yeah?”

He closed his eyes, recalling the words. _“All these years, I never saw you. I only saw the uniform of my devoted servant, I never looked any deeper than that. But you? The person under the uniform? Your humor, your gentleness, your tenderness, your care of me? I looked right through you and I am so angry with myself for all the foolish years I’ve wasted, sitting there in the back seat, when you were right there in front of me, everything I’ve ever wanted, needed and desired. I love you.”_

He opened his eyes again, and they were full of tears. “I wrote that for you, Qi. It was all the words I couldn’t say to you then. I wanted to, but I didn’t know how. I loved you, but I was afraid that if I told you I’d be taking advantage of you. You were still a child when you came to us and you were under our care. I grew to love you but I didn’t really understand it until we visited Chun’s house the day before Bolin and Opal’s wedding.” He shook his head. “Not that I knew what to do about it, mind. Nuo knew, though. She hauled me into her dressing room and gave me a private earful about it, believe me.”

“She did?” Not that I didn’t believe that Nuo would give Wu a piece of her mind, Nuo being Nuo. But about me?

“Oh, she did. I was so upset by it I didn’t even write about it in my diary, and I write everything in it!” He did smile at that. “She told me that you weren’t a child any longer and that I clearly had feelings for you that went far past being your employer and that I had to face them and decide what I was going to do.”

“Yeah, she cornered me that trip and said something similar. I couldn’t decide whether or not I wanted to run for the hills or stick a knife in her.”

He laughed then, and I had to join him. “Oh, my Nuo. I do love her so. Even though I could wish she would mind her own business sometimes.”

“She thinks you’re her business.”

“Don’t I know it!” He wrapped his arms around me and burrowed his head into my chest, just like Meili does. “Oh, Qi.” We sat there for a little time, on that rock, me holding him, him holding me.

“Did you really write those words for me?”

“I did.”

I smiled. “That was pretty romantic of you.”

“A personal failing, I know.”

“Do you know what?”

“Yes?”

I whispered into his ear. “When I read that book, before I knew it was you writing it, of course…well. I imagined to myself that it was you saying them to me.”

“My Qi, oh my own sweet Qi,” he whispered in return and the way he said it, so quiet and yet with so much feeling, made my throat ache. He kissed me then, a soft and careful kind of kiss, full of apologies and love. I kissed him back the same way, my arms wrapped around him so tight I'm surprised he was still breathing. We were feeling it, believe me, and we might have tested how far we could take it but we were interrupted by the ground shaking underneath us, sending us sideways. “What on earth-” he started, pulling back from me, but it ended in a gasp. There, in front of us, in all their magnificent glory, was Mama Badgermole and her baby. We both froze up, kiss forgotten, looking at them, my mouth wide open at how big they were. It’s not that I don’t know how big grown badgermoles are, haven’t I seen the two at the zoo, a million times? But standing there, next to the lake, out free the way they were, the size of the mama was downright terrifying.

Wu, though. He gently pulled himself out of my arms and stood up. He should have looked silly; there he was, in nothing but a yellow silk undershirt and a pair of rumpled green trousers, his feet bare, his hair curling all over the place, squinting a bit like he used to before he got his glasses, his nose and eyes all red from crying. He didn’t look silly, though. The way he stood - so still and tall, his shoulders back and his chin pointed forward, his hands easily by his sides - he looked like a king. And then, as I watched, the mama and her baby stood up on their hind legs and they danced for him. I know what you’re thinking, how could they have done it? Wild beasts like that? But they held themselves much like he was - right on down to the squinting, they are all but blind, can hardly see a damn thing but shadows and light, really - and they swayed back and forth standing up like that, paws moving in certain directions, slow and what they call stately. How did they know what to do? Even Little Bit knew, despite the fact that she wasn’t quite as smooth as her mama was. I ain’t never seen a fucking thing like it. I doubt, no matter how long I live, I ever will.

And Wu just stood there on that flat rock, stood there like he was in the palace at Ba Sing Se, surrounded by jade and gold and marble, His Royal Majesty. He watched them until they had finished and then, he did something I’ve never seen him do to anybody before. He crossed his hands across his chest and he bowed, deep and from the waist. Even I know kings don’t do that, the most I’ve ever seen Wu do is nod his head in respect. But he bowed to those badgermoles after they had done their dance for him, and in return, they bowed back to him before landing back down on all fours, the two of us nearly stumbling over with the force of it.

He was crying, I saw, silent tears rolling down his cheeks. And despite what you think, it made him look even more like a king. “You honor the House of Hou-Ting,” he sang, and despite the fact that the man has a truly terrible singing voice it didn’t change a thing. It was a solemn moment. A kingly moment. I didn’t even realize I was crying myself until a tear dripped into my mouth and I tasted the salt of it.

Little Bit broke it, though, by eagerly shuffling forward, squeaking at him. Then his face broke into a happy smile, and he threw his arms around her. “What a marvelous girl you are, my gracious” he sang, and she shivered all over in joy. Her mama came forward too, rumbling something at her baby, who made a little noise and ducked her head. “Oh no, not on my account,” he sang, off-key as anything, reaching a hand towards her. “Your daughter is a rare and precious and beautiful jewel,” and damn me if that Mama Badgermole didn’t preen like she couldn’t agree with him more. He petted her and kissed her, making his compliments more and more flowery, and Mama finally unbent enough to actually give him a little nudge with her snout, which clearly delighted him. Oh, he was so happy. “And you know my Royal Consort, Qi,” he sang and Little Bit bounded over to me, the rock shuddering, to slurp at my face and knock me on my ass again. Her mama scolded her a bit but it was clearly just for form.

We were out there for a time with them, Wu happily singing their praises, Mama full of her dignity but clearly very pleased to have Wu kissing and petting on her snout the way he was doing, Little Bit galloping back and forth between all of us, squeaking and warbling, pushing at me until I kissed her snout as well. I can tell you, all the things I ever dreamed about for myself when I was a kid, none of them included smooching up on a baby badgermole in the backyard of my own house. Finally they headed off, burrowing down into the ground, not leaving a single trace behind them. Those badgermoles are smooth, no doubt.

I put my arm around him and he looked at me. “I’m the last one,” he said, eyes overflowing again. “The very last of the Hou-Tings. Not that there aren’t nobles with a sprinkle and dash of royal blood, of course. But I’m the last of my house.” He wiped at his eyes with his fingers. “I dread what my ancestors must think of me. The last Hou-Ting, giving up the throne they all fought and died for, not even making an effort to propagate the line. I’m afraid I’m a terrible disappointment to them.”

“You’re not a disappointment to us,” I said, but I knew it wasn’t going to make him feel better about it in the moment. I know it’s a hurt he has, most likely always will. “Come on now. Don’t fret and spoil your happy mood. You got to see your badgermoles!”

“I did, didn’t I?” That smile was back, the sparkles on the water one.

“But maybe we should go back into the house, what do you say?”

“Gracious! Look how late it’s gotten! Mako probably thinks we’ve drowned or something!”

I snorted at that. “He would have hauled ass out here and come looking for us if he had. I’ll lay yuan he’s fallen asleep.”

“Oh. You may be right at that, Qi.”

“Yeah.” I pointed at my back. “Come on, hop on up, I’ll give you a ride back up to the house, save those soft little feet of yours.”

“Won’t I be too heavy?”

I laughed. “Boy, if I can haul San around I can surely haul you. You’re nothing more than a little wisp of air.”   

“I really do take exception to that!” He hopped onto my back and I wrapped my arms around his thighs to keep him steady. Trust me, he really is that light. “I have eaten a great deal today!”

“I know, if LoLo hears how that ditchweed gave you an appetite he’ll make you smoke it every day.”

“Oh, I’d really rather not. I prefer champagne.” I couldn’t help myself, I gave his bare feet a tickle. “Qi!” And then, with a little giggle, he shouted, “Giddy-up,” and dug his heels into me, just like I was an ostrich horse and I obliged him by galloping back towards the house, making sure he got bounced around as he laughed and laughed, making me laugh as well. I can never stay mad at him, and that's just a fact. Love's like that sometimes, I reckon.

I do love him so.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh, those Beifongs.

I wasn’t wrong about Mako. Wu and I peeked into the bedroom - him still perched on my back - and Mako was sound asleep, curled up like he usually is. So I took him with me into the kitchen, meaning to sit him down while I looked for his glasses, and who should we find but Opal, tucking into some more cold noodles, wearing Bolin’s shirt and not much else.

“Where’d you two come from?” she asked around her chopsticks.

“The lake,” I said. Wu reached for his own pair of chopsticks and went to town on the rest of those noodles. I couldn’t get over how much he was eating, I swear he’d eaten more in the past three hours than he had in the past three weeks. “Where’s Bolin?”

She huffed. “Fell right asleep before we got up to anything, damn it.” She aimed for a lone leftover dumpling, but Wu’s chopstick beat her to it, snatching it right up. “Help yourself, Wu!”

He didn’t bother to reply to that, just shoved it on in. “Mako’s asleep too,” he said as soon as his mouth cleared up.

A snort. “Typical. Sometimes they are so alike.”

“Save some for me,” I said, pointing at an open box of braised picken over rice and went on the hunt for his glasses, turning up cushions and the like before finding them under the sofa. Thankfully they weren’t broken or anything. I carefully polished the lenses for him on my undershirt and took them back in. “Here, I found them.” He hooked them around his ears and settled them down on his nose before smiling at me. I’ve gotten so used to seeing him with them now that his face looks kind of naked without them. I grabbed up my own chopsticks and took up the picken before he ate it from under me.

We didn’t say anything for a bit as we polished off the food on the table. Normally Wu chats up a storm - he’s not comfortable with silence, or at least very often - but he was too busy eating for once in his life. Finally Opal stretched over the back of her chair, her spine making a crunching noise. “Qi, can I steal a cigarette?”

“Sure. In my jacket pocket, in the living room.” I pointed with my thumb. “Take the lighter, too.”

Wu blinked. “Opal! I had no idea you partook!”

She shrugged. “Eh, every once in awhile. Bolin never does, and I’d never do it in front of the kids.” She grinned and put her finger across her lips. “Shhhhhhh.” She hopped off her chair then and headed into the living room. I chuckled at Wu’s look.

“She’s a Beifong, what were you expecting?”

“I have no idea. You’d think, if anything, I’d learn never to have any expectations whatsoever when it comes to Beifongs.”

“Best approach, probably.” Opal came back in and she and I hooked two chairs and took them out to the courtyard, setting them next the to the chair Wu had left out there earlier. “I guess I should get myself something to sit on out here.”

“Mmmm,” Opal said, and handed me a cigarette too, lighting them both before returning my lighter. “It’s so gorgeous out here. You really should.”

Wu scooted his chair a little closer to me and swung his still bare feet up to rest them in my lap. I made sure I blew my smoke the other way. He doesn’t like smoking at all, although he never does nag me or Mako about it, which I appreciate. Smoking cigarettes is a street kid thing, you can scavenge the dregs from cast off butts, roll up your own. You take whatever small pleasures you can find out there, believe me. Nowadays I can buy expensive ones, imported from the Fire Nation. They taste a sight better, let me tell you. Where he came from, they used fancyass long pipes, all carved and inlaid with gold and such to smoke with. Opium mostly, although tobacco has become more popular in recent years. Wu has issues with opium, though. His father was an addict and was a right nasty little fucker, from what I understand. He was killed off when Wu was five and apparently nobody missed him. Wu won’t touch anything like that with a ten foot pole. I was surprised he tried the ditchweed, to be honest.

“I thought that ditchweed was supposed to relax me. It did at first but then it got me all het up. Made me feel all tied up inside, like the world was against me or something.” I frowned. “Or maybe it’s just me.”

Opal shook her head. “Not just you. Kwan - that’s Aunt Lin’s nephew from the other side, you know, the one you all haven’t met yet -” she looked over at us and at our nods continued - “yeah, he gets like that, too. Don’t know why, but he gave up on it, according to Huan.”

“Huh,” I said, shrugging. “Guess it’s not for me, then.”

“I’m looking forward to finally meeting him,” Wu said, gently rubbing the top of his foot along my side, looking for a little tootsie rub. I obliged, like I always do. “According to Huan he’s very large.”

Opal laughed, flicking her ash. “He could give Sitiak a run for his money. He’s one big, big boy. Pretty quiet, though. But very nice.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard all about him from Wei. At length. Plenty of length.” I grinned at Opal.

“Oh, poor Wei. He took one look at him and was lovestruck, as usual. Meanwhile, poor old Kwan follows my brother around like that goat dog puppy of his.”

“Who, Huan?” Wu’s eyebrows shot up.

“No, I mean Baatar.” Opal threw her hand up in the air. “Not that he notices, bless the man. Completely oblivious. Well, he always was about that kind of thing. I swear, half of my friends used to come over just so they could moon around after him.” She snorted, shaking her head. “He had no idea. Zero. Not a single clue. He sees himself as this bespectacled loser, always has. Granted, he was still a bit skinny when he was a teenager, little shy with strangers, that kind of thing. But he was cute, though. Smart, too. Smarter than the rest of us put together.” She leaned down to carefully grind out her butt. “That sort of booky, smart thing holds a lot of appeal for some people.” She rolled her eyes. “Never thought it would hold that much appeal for Ikki, but there you have it.”

“So she really does care for him?” Wu looked like he wanted to cuddle, so I leaned over and yanked his chair next to mine and he curled his feet up under him and burrowed right into me. “Huan has mentioned it in his letters, but you know how he is. He’s not always that forthcoming about relationships, as it were.”

“I honestly don’t think Huan sees relationships the same way the rest of us do,” Opal said, and Wu waved a hand in agreement. “He’s always been like that. And a lot people couldn’t see what he and Ikki would see in each other, but I lived with Ikki over on the Island for quite a few years, you know. Trained with her. Hell, I lived across the hall from her until Bolin started spending nights over there and Pema moved us over to the couples dorm.” She thought for a moment. “Ikki was a girl who knew what she wanted and did it. Not in a rebellious sense, not like Meelo is. Meelo can’t help but get his temper up, he’s a lot like his father that way. He’ll make a fight out of anything. Ikki won’t fight. She’ll just quietly go off and do whatever it is she wants, and if anyone holds her accountable she just disappears.” She swung up her feet and put them in the part of my lap that wasn’t full of Wu. Apparently I was a cushion. “So her and Huan? Huan as stubborn and set in his own ways and fuck everyone else the way he is? Traveling like that together? They are so well-suited to each other it isn’t even funny. A match made perfect. But Baatar?” She tipped her head back. “He’s so much like my mother. Out of all of us. He looks like Dad, you know? And of course he’s an engineer, so there’s the whole building thing. And he’s not a bender, so people assume he’s got a personality like Dad and they could not be more wrong on that one.”

“So you’re saying he’s more like Wei?” I asked. I kissed the top of Wu’s head and he laid it on my shoulder.

“Oh, he is. The two of them are so alike, it’s always why they have fought so much. They butt heads like crazy, even though they’d die for each other. And like Mom, Baatar wants everything to go the way he wants it and he’s not happy when it doesn’t go his way, either. And I would have thought for sure Ikki would have hated that.” A little snort. “As in, punting him off the side of the mountain hated it. And apparently she did at first, it upset Huan how much the two of them were always at each other’s throats. But it changed at some point. And weirdly enough, they seem to be really good for each other. Ikki takes the stick out of his ass and he gives her stability.” She waggled her toes suggestively at me and like a good little Qi I took my spare hand and started to massage at her feet. “Oh, that’s nice.”

“And the little boy…?” Wu scowled down at Opal’s feet. Wu doesn’t like to share.

“Goba? Oh, he’s a sweetheart, an utter sweetheart. He’s latched onto Baatar like crazy. And Baatar is great with kids, he always was. Let’s just say that no one in our family was surprised that Baatar took to him like he did.”

“Really?” At Opal’s glare Wu threw up a hand. “I beg your pardon, Opal, I meant no offense. It’s just the person your brother seemed to be with Kuvira was rather contradictory to the person he seems to be now.” Kuvira is as touchy a subject for Wu as she is for the Beifongs, although I don’t think most people realize it. Wu took what she did to the Earth Kingdom real personally. Not to mention she had him kidnapped, most likely to be killed. I’d take that personal, too.

Opal sighed. “Dad once said that it was like Kuvira used some sort of spell on him. None of us recognized who he was with her.” She looked so sad that I squeezed her feet and she gave me a very tiny smile. “Don’t get me wrong. He went with her willingly. He really did believe that Mom was doing the wrong thing in Zaofu and he really did believe that the Earth Kingdom should have been a democracy. Mom sort of conveniently forgets how he’d talked about it before he left with Kuvira. They’d even fought about it, the two of them, and more than once. He still believes that, he’s not a fan of monarchies or in hereditary rights to titles, that kind of thing. But the weapon…” She looked away, and when she spoke again, she was quiet. “The weapon, the camps…those things, those were not the brother I grew up with. The one who used to be so patient with Huan, who used to fix all our broken toys." She started to sound a little shaky. "The one who used to make me feel better when I felt bad about not being a bender. I still don’t understand how he went from our Junior to her Baatar. I don’t think I’ll ever understand it.” She looked back at us and wiped at her eyes. “Sorry.”

“No, I apologize, Opal. It’s clearly a distressing subject and I shouldn’t have brought it up.” He placed a hand on her ankle.

“I know we’re a hardheaded group. We’re Beifongs! The most normal one out of all of us is probably Wing, and that’s not saying much, look who he married.” She sniffled. “Nuo. The daughter my mother always wanted. Well, after the other daughter she always wanted tried to kill us and did her best to destroy two countries, of course.” She shrugged, trying to pass it off as if it meant nothing. We weren’t fooled.

“Oh, Opal. Your mother is clearly so proud of you!” Wu leaned towards her.

“My mother wanted an earthbending daughter who would uphold the mighty name of Beifong, who would become her legacy. She got me.” Opal’s voice was bitter. I couldn’t ever remember her sounding like that before. “I know she loves me. I know she’s proud of me, after all, I’m an airbender and that’s a legacy in itself nowadays. But I’m not what she wanted. And I love them, but my bending brothers do not understand what it was like for Baatar, being the oldest Beifong without bending. I do. And my mother did try to include us, she did. She married a nonbender, after all, and my parents’ relationship is one of the best I’ve ever seen. It’s what I wanted with Bolin. But benders, they do consider nonbenders below them, despite themselves. I should know. I’m one of the rare people who has been both.” She took in a deep breath. “Baatar was always a disappointment to her that way, as was I. And we both knew it, believe me, despite her best efforts to never treat us any differently. The way she doted on the twins-” She cut herself off and shook her head. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters,” I said, and reached over to drag her close to me. “It hurts you and it matters.”

She sniffled into my shoulder. “It’s why I never wanted that fucking wedding. I never needed it with Bolin, for one thing. I never needed that to know he was the only one for me. And I knew my mother would go completely wolfbat shit over the top with it. Marrying off her only daughter! The Beifong daughter! It went out of control and I knew it was going to happen.” I put my hand on her back, just keeping it steady, the same way I did for Wu when he got worked up. “And poor Bolin, he was so happy to have a wedding, I think he thought it was going to be like yours and Mako’s was, Wu. And of course it was what it was and he was just lost, my mother was ordering him around and you know how he is, so anxious to please, he just did everything she told him to even though he was unhappy about it. And I was pregnant, and Bu so sick, and there's my mother, nagging in my ear about fucking fabric samples! As if I gave a shit! My son couldn’t fucking breathe but let’s talk about different shades of green, Mom!” She pulled away from me, eyes all full of angry tears, hands waving wildly in the air. “And I knew the whole time it was just that she wanted to show me off. It was never about what I wanted. Never! None of it.” She wiped at her eyes with her sleeves. “We got to the resort for our honeymoon and Bolin had gone to all this trouble, called ahead and made everything so perfect, like he always does. He’d throw himself off a fucking bridge to make me happy. And all I could do was sit there in that room with all the rose petals and this beautiful nightgown he’d picked out special, crying my heart out.” Another swipe at her eyes. “I don’t know why he puts up with me, I really don’t.”

Wu smiled though, and took her hands in his. “He loves you, that’s why. Why do you think Mako puts up with me? You know I’m not exactly easy to live with. But those boys…well. They are devout in their love.” He sighed. “And I’m glad you said all of that. About your wedding, I mean.”

“Why? Want to cancel yours?” She said it as a joke, but Wu was serious when he answered.

“If Qi wants to.” He pulled back so he could look at me. “I’ve been behaving terribly, haven’t I? I’m so completely determined to have a proper, traditional royal wedding that I haven’t once stopped to consider if it was what you wanted.” He pulled his hands away from Opal to put one on my face. “It’s not fair of me to force you to have the wedding I really wanted with Mako.”

I smiled at him. “You think I didn’t know that was what I was signing up for?” I tucked one of his curls back. “I knew. It’s okay. You know how much I like a good show, it’s not just you that wants it. I’ll be okay, I just have to go and take a deep breath every once in awhile, shake it off, that’s all. Not all that sure about the whole marriage bed thing, though. If you’re asking.”

“Oh, Wu. No. No! You aren’t actually doing the marriage bed. Tell me you aren’t. Who are you, my great-great-grandmother?” She laughed then, a wicked giggle. “Wait, wait, wait, the two of you haven’t…” she trailed off as Wu glared at her, his face pinking up. Hard to see it, him being as dark as he is, but it’s there if you know what to look for. “Oh sweet Raava in teapot, you haven’t! Wu!”

“Opal! I am certainly not going to discuss my private…doings…with you!”

“You can’t tell me Mako waited, though.” She was grinning to beat the band. “I’ll never believe it.”

“OPAL!”

“Not a fucking chance,” I told her, and the two of us started laughing.

“QI!”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Just like his brother, I swear. Bolin could go at it in the middle of an earthquake, nothing would stop him. Not that I’m complaining.”

“OPAL BEIFONG!”

She stuck her fingers into his side, tickling him like I’ve seen her do with Wei and the look of outrage on his face as he shrieked in surprise set the both of us off even harder. “Oh come on, Wu! It’s just me! I’m family!”

“Well, really!”

“You are the most uptight person about sex I have ever seen!” Poor Wu just gaped at her, unable to even say anything. He looked a little bit like one of his koi, not that I was stupid enough to actually say so. “How do you even write those scenes in your books? Or do you have a spiritwriter for those parts?”

Now he was offended on top of being scandalized. “I beg your pardon! I do not have a spiritwriter!” He sniffed at her. “And besides, I am never uncouth in those scenes.”

“That’s right, he won’t say his big fat prick, he’ll call it his burgeoning manhood instead.” Now his glare was turned on me. I couldn’t help myself, I was laughing so much, and Opal along with me. “His turgid member. I don’t even know what that word means, fuck’s sake!”

“The flower of her femininity,” Opal said, fanning herself and that’s it, I could feel tears coming. “The sweet nectar of her core.” I gave out a little whoop at that one, and Opal was actually snorting, and every time she did we started up again. Oh, we were getting it all out of our systems.

“No one wants vulgarity in that sort of novel,” Wu practically shouted. “I’m not writing some sort of distasteful, lewd pulp!”

“Quit giving him a hard time about his books,” Mako said, appearing out of nowhere, picking Wu up to sit down in his chair, putting him back on his lap. His hair was mussed up and he was dressed much like we were, bare feet and trousers and undershirt. He gave Wu a loud smacking kiss on his cheek.

“They are giving me a very hard time,” Wu sniffed, looking put out, and that was all it took for me and Opal.

“Are they hard though?” Opal could barely breathe.

“Naw, just turgid,” I told her, nearly falling off my chair.

“For your information, turgid is simply a more descriptive word for…well. For a man’s state of excitement, as it were.” That only made it worse. Even Mako was trying not to laugh, sort of staring off into the distance, biting down on his lips.

“As it were,” shrieked out Opal, and poor Mako was fighting it, looking like he needed to sneeze or something.

“Are we telling jokes?” Bolin had shown up, scratching at his head. He looked down at Opal. “Oh, that’s where my shirt went.”

“We’re talking about Wu’s books,” she said, and lifted up her cheek for a kiss.

“Oh, Wu’s books are great! I love Wu’s books!” he said. That’s Bolin for you. He’ll find the positive in anything. “What part are we talking about?”

“The smutty parts,” I said. I really was trying to stop laughing. Wu had gone past his I’m a koi face to a I will order the Dai Li to squash you with a rock face.

“Right, right. Sure. The smutty parts.” He dropped himself down towards the chair, putting Opal on his lap the way Mako had done for Wu. “But are there smutty parts in Wu’s books?”

“I do have some tastefully executed love scenes,” Wu said, shooting us all a look that was meant to drop us dead. Next thing you know he was going to call back them badgermoles to do for Opal and me. Wasted on Bolin, though. If dirty looks alone were going to do for him his mother-in-law and her sister would have killed him years ago.

“You do?” Bolin blinked. “I don’t remember those.”

“The sweet nectar of her core,” Opal reminded him, and Mako stepped on my foot, me making a strangled sort of yelp instead of a laugh.

“Uh huh, sure.” Bolin grimaced. “Right. Nectar of her core.” He scratched his head again. “Is that…I think I missed something.”

“I beg your pardon?” Ice cold. Wu was ice cold. If I had ever wanted to know what the old Queen looked like, I think I knew.

“I just…I thought that was about a bee. Like you know, they were in the garden? And it was some bees? With their nectar?” He smiled hopefully.

There was a dead silence as we all stared at him. I made the mistake of looking at Opal and that was it, we were whooping it up, and then Mako broke, shaking Wu in his lap with his laughter. Poor Bolin just looked kind of confused and Wu looked like he was going to murder us all. Oh, I love him so much, I do. Sweet nectar of her core. Bless the man. I reached over into Mako’s lap and kissed him all over his face until he couldn’t take it any longer and pushed me away, blushing and trying not to smile.

“Stop that! You are mocking me and I am displeased with you!”

“Naw honey, no. We all like your books, you know we do, we’re just laughing about how all those romances talk about sex.” I kissed him one more time for good measure. “You know me, I ain’t shy about a thing, comes from where I grew up.”

“Where did you grow up, Qi?” Bolin was looking at me. “What part of the city, I mean. I never really knew.”

I took a deep breath. I didn’t go into with people, for too many reasons to count. But this was just Bolin and Opal. I trusted them. Or at least I wanted to. “The Flower District. My Mama worked there before she died. Couldn’t tell you who my Daddy was.”

Bolin kept meeting my eyes, didn't look away. I appreciated this, more than he probably knew. “Oh,” was all he said, but he knew what I was telling him, or at least the main part. I wasn’t sure if Opal knew, but her good Beifong manners meant she wouldn’t bring it up. She’d ask Bolin later. I didn’t think she’d judge me, though. I hoped not.

“Qi read me some of your new book,” Mako said. “It was really good.”

Wu’s face damn near broke my heart, he looked so hopeful and so nervous at the same time. He knows Mako doesn’t like romances and he’d never say it but I’m pretty sure it hurts his feelings that Mako doesn’t make the effort to read his, though. “You did? I…I didn’t know Qi was going to read it to you.”

“I’m sorry if you didn’t want me to. Truly. I just thought Mako might like it.”

“No, it’s good. I want to know what’s going to happen next. In fact, I was hoping Qi would start at the beginning and read the rest of it to me.”

“Opal reads me all of your books. I’m not really good enough at reading to get through them on my own. But I like them! Don’t I, Opie?” Bolin was smiling at him, and Wu gave him a little smile back.

“Both of us enjoy them, Wu. We really do. We’ve all read them, you know. Including Baatar.” She chuckled a little at that. “Apparently Huan reads them aloud like I do, Ikki doesn’t read very well either. Baatar says he isn’t interested, but he always stays in the room.”

Mako frowned at that. “What do you mean by that? Ikki was educated.”

Opal shook her head. “No, it’s not that. She has difficulties reading, she always has, as far as I know. It’s why she’s so good at memorizing things, she tries to avoid reading whenever and however she can. She told me once that the words sort of jumped around on the page for her, she can’t follow them. Jinora always read for her and Huan took over.” Mako didn’t say anything, just looked thoughtful. Gave his brother a look, too.

“Hey! Maybe Qi could read some of it to us!” Bolin grinned at me. “What do you say, hmmm?”

“Uh…I’m not really a very good reader myself, comes right down to it.”

“Better than I am,” Mako said. I knew he wasn’t saying it to make me feel better. Mako’s not like that. He was just stating a fact as he saw it. My ears started getting a bit hot, though.

“I think Wu should read it to us,” Opal said, and we all looked at him. He was clearly both pleased and embarrassed by this, but Mako gave him a squeeze.

“You can come into the kitchen and do it, Bo and I'll put together some dinner while you read.”

“We already ate,” I said.

Mako grunted. “Well, dinner for us, then. And afterward we can load up my car with all those smaller boxes, save us some time in the morning.”

“We could take all of the rest of it up into the kitchen, too. I can get Juicy close to the side door there when we’re ready to load him up.” Opal nodded at him. “You and Wu can take off first thing. The three of us can manage with Juicy, it’ll take you longer to get back home anyhow.”

“All I’d ask is that you stop by the farmer’s and let them know we’ve headed out.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Mako said, and stood up, putting Wu down gently. Mako’s a no time like the present kind of guy. Also, I’m guessing he was feeling a mite peckish by then, and a hungry Mako is a cranky Mako, trust me on this one. Best to get to feeding him.

Wu settled himself into the kitchen with the manuscript, polishing his glasses and getting all important with it. He was nervous; I don’t think he was expecting to have anyone else but me hearing it. At the same time he wanted to know what we all thought. He’s a good reader; his voice is so clear anyhow and he knows how to put feelings into the words, which is not something I can do. He read along while Mako and Bolin put together a meal, kept reading while they ate (and I had a little more; what can I say? I need a lot of fuel) and even read through the two of them doing up the few dishes and Mako packing most everything but what we’d need for breakfast into the boxes LoLo had sent. He put it down while we hauled stuff up the cellar stairs, though; I had expected him to bow out but he surprised me by helping. Mako brought the car around and Bolin used his bending to help move some of the bigger pieces upstairs while the rest of us carried up boxes. Wu said he’d take the smaller ones since he couldn’t carry anything too heavy and he turned out to be surprisingly good at finding space for them in the back seat. It took some creative juggling, but we managed to get all of the small boxes as well as two of the medium ones into the car. Packed up like that, you could really see that it was a damn good haul. Wu carefully wrapped the manifest in one of my clean pillowcases and put it in the front seat. “It can sit on my lap,” he told me, but let’s just say that I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he read it the entire way home.

Everyone wanted to hear more of the story after that, but I excused myself to take a short walk. I’d already read that part anyhow. I went out to the lake and softly called for Marezelle, waiting to see if she would appear. She’d made herself scarce the moment they’d all shown up on Juicy and I wanted to thank her again for her help. She didn’t show herself - she really is shy, especially around other people but me - but I thanked the air and wasn’t surprised a bit when I looked down on the rock and saw a little posy bouquet made up of the yellow flowers that I had discovered on the banks of my stream.

Wu read until it was dark enough to toggle the electric lights; he read a bit more before we all decided to turn in. Bolin and Opal were as drawn into the story as Mako and I were. Bolin made Wu promise that he’d read the rest to us over the next week or so and his happy, proud face damn near killed me. Wu likes to play that he’s above caring what anyone thinks of him, but that’s not true. He’s more sensitive than most people realize. I know it’s why he’s like a mama platypus bear with Zhi, he knows what it is to have your heart crushed so easily. I don’t think most people know that about him, though. We made our goodnights to Bolin and Opal and headed back to our room.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How do you get everyone to fit?

Shocker of all shockers, Mako had not bothered to make the bed. He never does, claims there’s no point when you’re just getting back in it again in a few hours. Wu gave it the stink-eye when we walked in there but kept his mouth shut. “So, did the two of you work out whatever the fuck it was that happened this afternoon?” Mako shucked off his undershirt and Wu and I took a good long look. Fuck me but the man is easy on the eyes. “And by the way, I don’t want to hear you calling yourself ugly again.” That got me the old Mako Glare. Mako gets all narrow-eyed and mean when he glares. I mean, the man’s upstanding and all, but I wasn’t the only person in that room who’d ever killed a body, and his glares are not something I’d laugh off. “That’s a load of shit.”

Despite the glare, I ignored that part. I know what I am, no point in pretending otherwise. Reckon I can get out of a conversation I don’t want to have as good as anyone else, though. “Wu doesn’t want to have sex with me because he’s waiting on that marriage bed custom.” That got me a Wu Glare, but it was only the truth, so he can glare until he’s old and buried, far as I’m concerned.

“The marriage…what the…” he was trying to figure it out. His lip curled up when he did. “Hang on. Do you mean that thing where they make you stay in bed and come and check that you are actually fucking?” Now the glare was turned Wu’s way. “You’re kidding me with that one, right? Right?”

Wu sniffed. “It’s traditional.”

“Wait, what’s this come in and check business?”

Mako scoffed. “People - usually the parents, but if we’re talking royalty, it’d be advisors - come in every few hours to check to make sure the married couple are actually having sex. Check the sheets, check them if they think they’re holding back. It was for arranged marriages, they wanted to make sure the bride caught pregnant since most of the time they didn’t even know each other, never mind like each other. Wu told me all about it. In fact, told me how awful he thought the custom was, since his mother did not want to be married to his father and based on his birthdate that’s how his mother caught pregnant.”

“Oh really,” I said, and now it was my turn to give the old Qi Glare. “Well that is some fucking news to me.”

“I wasn’t going to adhere to that part of the custom,” Wu said quietly. He wouldn’t look at either one of us. “They made my mother stay there for nearly two months. Until her courses didn’t come and they could reasonably assume she was pregnant. I read her letters to Chun about it. It was…it was very bad.” He looked up, miserable. “It’s just that Gun…well. I don’t want to disappoint him.”

Mako sighed and put an arm around him. “I know you want his approval, but making Qi stay in bed for a month is not the way to do it.”

“I wasn’t going to do that! Just a few days!”

“That’s a no, Wu. I am not doing that. And it wasn’t in that contract, neither. I’d know if it was. Lin read through all of it line by line with the lawyer and I can promise you, she would have pitched a damn fit if that had been in it.”

“You can say that again.”

“No, it wasn’t. I…” He squirmed. “It’s just that Gun said…”

I sat down on the bed. “I know he’s important to you. He’s like LoLo is to me, I get it. But Wu, I ain’t gonna do it. And it wasn’t right of you to make that choice for me.”

“I know,” he said, looking down at the floor. “I understand that now.”

“And you really want to wait all this time to have sex?” Ah, that was our Mako, making sure we got back to the sex part. “Seriously?”

“Of course I don’t want to wait! It’s just…well. You know.”

Mako snorted. “No, I don’t actually know. And neither does Qi. Or anybody else that isn’t living in Avatar Roku’s time.”

“Hmph,” Wu said, crossing his arms, sitting down on the bed. “Traditions are important. I know you don’t care, but some of us do.”

I went down on my knees in front of him. “Honey, listen. I know your traditions are important to you. I’m willing to spend a day in that marriage bed with you, you can have Nuo and the Flowers come and do whatever it is they’re supposed to do with it before we get in it. But I won’t spend longer than that and I won’t have Gun nor nobody else coming and checking on us. I need to be real clear on that. I’m not putting up with that under any damn circumstances. Because I need you to know that it would make me feel like a whore, and I have some issues with that.” I craned my head until I met his eyes. “I love you, but I won’t do that for you. And you can’t be asking me to, do you understand?”

He took my hands in his. “I understand, Qi. I do.” He stood up, taking me along with him. “I am deeply sorry. Profoundly sorry. Please accept my heartfelt apologies for my insensitive and presumptuous behavior.” He put his hands together and bowed very deeply to me. Like I was a badgermole or something.

“Uh yeah. Okay. I’m sorry I yelled at you. And told you to stick the contract up your ass.” I did a little bow as well. I’m not used to it. His was a lot more impressive.

“Where’s my bow?” Mako asked. We ignored him.

“I do not think you are ugly, and it distresses me to think that my behavior led to that erroneous belief on your part.” He was getting all wordy. He was going to start crying soon. “Qi, I really don’t-”

I put my arms around him and hugged him, hard as I could. He made a little whuff sound in my ear. Too hard. “Yeah, I know. It’s okay. It’s me that feels that way about myself, and I did long before you showed up. Never mind. But tell me now,” and here I pushed him back so I could look him in the eyes, “we’re not keeping to any of that nonsense about you not sleeping me with me until the wedding, right?”

He got all pink and wouldn’t meet my eyes. Well, there was my answer, then.

“So now that we’ve got that settled, can we get back to the part where we’re all naked and the two of you are going to kiss each other?”

“Mako!” Wu said. I just gave him a look and he shrugged at the both of us.

“Can’t blame a guy for asking.”

“Can’t I, though?” There went Wu’s prissy mouth. Mako put his arm around him.

“Let’s think about this rationally. We’re in the middle of nowhere. There is no one around but my brother and his wife on the other side of the house and I can pretty much guarantee you they are already naked and won’t be bothering us. We have no kids here.” He put his pointer finger gently into the middle of Wu’s forehead. “I’m going to repeat that last sentence and I want you to listen to me.” His finger tapped in time on his head. “We. Have. No. Kids. Here.” He waited.

“Oh.” Wu’s eyes got bigger. “OH!” Up went that look through the eyelashes. “Gracious. If you are going to put it that way…” He put a hand to Mako’s bare chest and gave it a little fondle.

“Come on, come on, we’ve got to get up and get moving in the morning.” Mako started to pull at Wu’s undershirt.

“Oh, and aren’t we the master of seduction!”

“If I was, I’d already have you out of those clothes.” Mako got Wu’s undershirt off. Wu was batting him away, but it was all for show, he was laughing, and Mako was grinning right back.

So here’s the thing. The two of them, they’ve been together for nearly fifteen years now. Not all that time as lovers, no. But except for that time when Wu was in Ba Sing Se they’ve been in and around each other day and night. They know all their ins and outs. And that goes double in the bedroom. I’m the outsider here. I try not to let it get to me, but it does sometimes. Sometimes I second-guess myself, think that maybe things might be better if I was still back in my place above the garage. Because I’m changing things, you follow? What if I ruin everything? What if the two of them, they lose this connection with each other because of me? I’ve thought about this more than is good for me, I reckon. But at that moment Wu turned those big green eyes on me, still laughing, and said, “I’ll observe that Qi is still dressed,” and Mako made a dive for me, yanking at my undershirt as well, and before I could say a word had my arms above my head, pulling it off, and I started to say something but Wu came up behind me and pressed himself against my back, those long fingers of his curving around me to take up my breasts and I sort of shook all over.

“Take the rest of Qi’s clothes off,” Wu said. No, not said. Ordered. And Mako, he did exactly what he was told, unfastening my trousers, sliding them down. I hadn’t even had on a pair of shorts, I’d gotten dressed in a hurry. Hadn’t even thought about it, neither, spending half the afternoon and evening like that. On the other hand, Opal was just walking around in Bolin’s long shirt, so I guess none of us, including Wu, was too fussed over it. I stepped out of them and then Wu came around the other side of me, looking me all over, this little smirk on his face. I wasn’t quite sure about it. We’ve fooled around a lot - Wu always stopping it before we got too far - but this was not the Wu I was used to. He turned and gave Mako a look - one of his royal looks - and without a word Mako got rid of his own trousers. He was good and hard, too. Burgeoning manhood, whatever. I grew up in a whorehouse. He’s got a long, fat prick, and it was sure enough wanting to get down to business, how’s that? “Take Qi to the bed,” Wu ordered, and Mako slid an arm around my waist, guiding me over there. I squeezed his hand - I wasn’t sure what we were up to - but he just kissed my ear and whispered.

“Trust me.”

He knows I trust him. He started to kiss me, hands moving over me, all up and down my torso. Man’s a quick study, he’s already an expert at getting me good and worked up. Wu wasn’t saying anything, was just standing there in his trousers, arms crossed, watching the two of us. I was more than a little disappointed - I wanted him to touch me, dammit! - but I was willing to go with whatever was going on there. He kissed his way on down me, pausing over my hipbone, glancing up at Wu before putting his mouth there, making me bounce right up off the bed, making some deep noise that came out of me like it had been pulled out slow. I never knew that my hips wanted kissing before Mako figured it out, and once he did? He likes going there, he does. I sent a quick look Wu’s way. He was staring down at us, his skinny little chest moving up and down, hands clenched up into fists. “Your turn,” Mako said, and crooked his finger at him. “Come on, now.”

Wu hovered there for a moment; with a start I realized he was nervous. Here I was thinking he was getting his king on! But he came closer, and eyes on Mako instead of me, lowered his head until his mouth was on my hip. “There you go, just like that,” Mako said, and showed him, me hauling up off the bed again. I can’t stop myself, my body just does it. I guess it’s my version of Wu’s earlobes. Wu followed his lead and yep, up I went again, my fingers digging deep into the muscle of Mako’s back. Don’t worry none. The man likes it.

“Oh,” Wu said, and that little oh sounded like he’d figured out the secrets of the universe or something. And that’s when I realized how truly scared he was. Scared! Not of me, I don’t think, but of falling short of Mako. And bless the man, Mako knew it. People give him a lot of shit for being insensitive, and maybe that’s true, but Mako cares. He doesn’t actually want people to feel bad, and I think he regrets it when he makes them feel that way. And he didn’t want Wu to feel bad by worrying about what Mako could do to me that Wu hadn’t figured out quite yet.

They kept that up with me for a bit - Mako taking the lead, showing Wu what I liked, Wu following behind - and meanwhile, never mind the fact that I was about to scream from getting all fired up and the two of them taking their own sweet time, playing school with me. One mouth taking a nipple into it, and then the other being tugged at by the other’s teeth, kissing down the inside of one thigh, the other following close behind, one finger sliding into me, broad and strong and scarred, and a longer, softer one met it inside of me, the two joining together, and that almost undid me, it did, me saying I don’t even know what, until Wu put his mouth over mine and then, oh fuck me, Mako put his mouth on my clit and that’s all it took to send me right on over, me coming so hard that I think I kind of made a mess all over everything.

“Fuck,” was all I managed after that, and Mako just smiled at me, running his fingers through my hair, pressing close into me. I wanted to thank him for what he’d done for the both of us, Wu and me, but I couldn’t quite manage it. I think he knew I was thanking him best I could right then, though.

“Oh Qi,” Wu said, and his hand was trembling a little on my face as he came up along the other side of me. He was still looking like someone had hit him on the head with a rock, so I turned my head to kiss him.

“Don’t be scared of me none,” I told him, fuck my accent altogether. I was beyond caring about much more than anything but the two of them, I can tell you.

“My Qi, my Qi,” he whispered, in between kissing my mouth. And wasn’t I his? He knows I am.

“You going to leave those clothes on?” Mako was grinning over at him, nudging his nose into the crook of my neck, close enough to kiss Wu if he’d wanted to. Oh, but he was hard, I could feel him against my thigh, his hips moving oh so slowly against me as his fingers trailed across my chest.

“I…oh. Oh, I…” Wu looked like he didn’t know what he wanted to do, so Mako sat up and moved himself over me, going for Wu’s pants, getting them unhooked and down his hips in a red hot second. “Mako!” he said, but he stood up like a good boy and slid them and his shorts off. He folded them up and after a little moment of dithering, put them on the floor. Mako and I gave each other a look and tried not to laugh. That’s our Wu for you. His prick could be bobbing along, hoping for a good time, but he’d still manage the niceties.

“That’s better,” Mako said, and hauled himself back to the other side of me, reaching across me to pull Wu back to us. “Let’s do this now.”

 I know there are some folks out there who like their sex one way only. They want to lay there, without giving or they want to be on the giving end. I’d hate to feel backed into a corner like that. And Mako figured out right quick how I like to switch it up, that I don’t really take to having to settle into being either a girl or a boy. I like to keep my options open, that’s just who I am. But that night, I wanted to let the both of them put me where they wanted me to be, and that ended up with me on my back, Wu above me, those eyes of his begging me to tell him it was all right. It was, and I kept telling him, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” and when he finally pushed into me it took everything in me not to start crying. Not because it felt bad but because it was so good, you follow? But I was afraid that if I did he’d get scared off, and I didn’t think I could stand it if he did. And sure, we fumbled a bit - wasn’t it his first time with someone made like me? - but everyone knows how that goes, no need for me to tell you all about it. We got through it, like people do.

He’s so slight, I could hardly feel the weight of him on me. But I could feel him inside me and suddenly my legs were getting pushed up and back, and that was Mako, who had moved behind him. Doing that meant he tilted deeper into me and I felt that, I did, and my fingers dug into his hips, making his eyes get bigger. He started to get a rhythm going, and with my new position he was smacking into my clit and I started making little noises, couldn’t help myself, I knew if he kept that up he was going to make me come. I couldn’t see Mako any longer but Wu made a sort of surprised croak and closed his eyes for a second, and then I felt something down there and realized it was Mako’s mouth, moving around down there, sucking in Wu’s balls and brushing up against me as well and fuck me if that wasn’t just about the hottest thing that’d ever happened to me and possibly Wu, too, because he started to speed up and I kind of forgot to breathe for a bit and the next thing I know, I’m coming all over the place, calling out as loud as my broken voice can manage, and Wu really started moving at that point, damn near shoving me across the bed, and he dropped his forehead to my chest and that was it, I felt him let loose in me and then I did cry, couldn’t have stopped myself if I had tried. He finished and fell on top me, started up shaking a little bit and I kept my arms around him, kissing the part of his curly head I could reach.

Mako slid up the bed and took up both of us into his arms. He was smiling. Still hard, too, but I figured we could take care of it in a bit, once we’d caught our breath. “That was so much better than waiting for the fucking marriage bed,” he said, and Wu turned his head and made a face.

“Oh, who asked you anyhow, Mako,” he griped, and that got a snort out of me. He put his hand back on my face. “I didn’t…I didn’t hurt you or anything, did I?” He was so anxious, poor man.

I put my arms around him. “Honey, I don’t think you could if you tried. Now stop your fussing, kiss me some more.” I could feel his body loosen up before he did. He does a lot of second guessing, our Wu, although he hides it pretty well behind that whole king thing of his. I didn’t want him to second guess this. It was good. No, he didn’t have Mako’s experience, but there was no way for him to get there without some practice, was there? He can practice on me any old time he likes.

Look, I know it seems like I am joking about this too much, like it didn’t mean anything to me. I’m no good with words, although I wish I was. I don’t know how to say what it meant to me, how it felt, not in the way that would sound beautiful right off the page. In other words, I’m no Wu. But I’ll tell you this much: there’s a place you go, when you are still training, when everything is in just the right spot. Your body knows what it is doing so your mind doesn’t have to think anymore and everything comes natural just like breathing. The feeling I had, the first time I used my knives without having to think it through, was the first time in my whole life that every single thing in that moment felt completely right to me. I felt whole. And in that moment, right then, my back pressed against Mako, feeling his hardness against me, with my arms holding Wu while he kissed me, my body tapped out a bit with coming like that but still ready to keep going, laying on a bed I’d bought with my own money in a house that was my very own, I felt like that again. I felt whole, like I was real, like my life wasn’t some sort of dream that I was going to wake up from, laying on the cold, wet pavement, scared and all alone. It was so good. I loved them so much. I don’t know what I ever did in my short fucked up life to deserve it, but right then and there I was entirely happy, no second guessing, no waiting for the next blow to come.

Mako was still pushing up against me, though, and he was trying to give the two of us some space but his prick was like, hey now, don’t let’s forget about me over here, so finally I stopped kissing Wu and rolled myself over to Mako’s other side, leaving him in the middle. I gave that pushy prick a little yank, and Mako hissed at me, just like some tomcat on the prowl. Wu gave it a look like hello there, my favorite prick in the whole wide world! before meeting my eyes and giving me one of his I am so pleased with my very royal self smiles. I love that smile. Just so you know. So I leaned down and gave his prick a kiss and Mako moaned a whole hell of a lot, and then Wu got down there and started licking on that thing like it was a stick of the world’s most delicious candy. The man had some enthusiasm, is what I’m saying. I wasn’t about to be left out of the fun, so I skooched myself lower and went to town on his balls. Nice hefty ones, too, and getting firmer and firmer as I rolled them around in my mouth. Mako’s always Mister In Control, so it was some good fun to watch him start moving himself across that bed, grabbing at Wu’s head and trying to shove him back down when Wu took him out of his mouth to smirk up at him. We kept up on him for awhile, swapping off, my turn for the candy stick and Wu’s for them big old balls until Mako started tensing up and Wu tapped my head, all polite like I beg your pardon, Qi, I need my husband to come in my mouth if I may, taking that prick away from me into his own mouth and swallowing down every single bit of it, much to my wonder. And then, when Mako was done, Wu just came up off of him and patted at the edges of his mouth with the coverlet like he’d just had the most tasty meal possible and that was it for me, I cracked up.

“You don’t have to laugh about it,” Mako said, but he was smiling, all wiped out and ready to snuggle, like he gets after he comes. So I slid up to one side of him and Wu came up to the other, and we tangled all up together, not saying much, all of us feeling pretty fine, I think. I was figuring I ought to get up and pee - Lin’s not really one to give motherly advice, but a few months ago out of nowhere she pointed her finger at me and told me to always take a piss directly after sex or else I’d get an infection and regret my life choices, which you know, I appreciated the advice even if I might have wished she hadn’t had done it when I was in the middle of driving through an intersection, a body should have their mind on the road, is what I’m saying - when Wu stirred.

“Are you really thinking of quitting?” He was quiet, none of his usual bossiness. His head was tucked into Mako’s shoulder and he kissed him there.

“Yeah. I guess I am.”

“I imagine Korra will be happy.”

Mako turned his head to look down at him. “That’s what Qi said. You really think so?”

Wu smiled. “Korra and I aren’t exactly each other’s biggest fan, but I do think she’d be glad to have you with her.”

“But it’d mean I’d be gone sometimes. I wouldn’t go away for months or anything, but even still.”

Wu raised his hand to run it through the bit of hair Mako has on his chest. “Well, we’d manage, I suppose.” He looked up at him, then. “Would it make you happy? That’s what I want to ascertain. I want you to be happy, Mako.”

“What about the kids? The two of you?”

“I think Qi and I can manage the children on our own, you know.” Wu gave his chest two quick taps. “Don’t use us as an excuse. I’d balk on behalf of the children if I thought you were going to be gone for months at a time, that I will tell you. There’s a reason Korra and Asami don’t have children of their own. But a few weeks here and there? In exchange for you feeling like you were doing something worthwhile with your time and talents?” He put his hand up to Mako’s cheek. “Of course I’m fine with it.”

“You know I am,” I threw in.

“It could be dangerous, you know.”

Wu just chuckled at that. “Outside of your brother, I cannot think of a single other person in this world who could provide you with more safety than Korra. I trust the two of you to watch out for each other.”

“You mean it?” Mako pushed himself up on one of the pillows.

“I fail to see why I would have said it if I didn’t.” Wu thumped his chest. “Come, we can talk about it tomorrow on the drive home.”

Mako glanced over at me. “Qi won’t be with us, though.”

“Ah, of course.” Wu gave me a little smile. “My apologies, darling. I need to be better about remembering to include you in family decisions.”

“Don’t worry, he’s not very good at remembering to include me, either.” Mako tweaked Wu’s nose to show he was only teasing.

“Hmph.”

“The two of you talk it through, you can fill me in tomorrow night, yeah?”

“You sure?” Mako yawned.

“I fail to see why I would have said it if I wasn’t,” I said, doing my best Wu impression. From Mako’s grin I’d say I nailed it. “Here, let me up, I need to pee.”

“Honestly, Qi,” Wu murmured, yawning himself, although I’ll note he covered his mouth. “You don’t need to give the details, you know.”

“Yeah well, there it is,” I said, rolling out of the bed, walking towards the bathroom. Mako whistled after my naked behind and I shot him the fingers, grinning to myself as I heard him laugh. I did my business - and didn’t take too long about it, mind! - but by the time I got back out there they’d both fallen asleep. I stood there for a minute looking down on them; Mako already all curled up, Wu spread out across half the bed as usual, and I had no idea where I was going to fit. In my own bed! Well, I reckon we’re going to have to talk about this, too, because I like my room and my privacy upstairs and I don’t really want to move into their bedroom with them at home, despite Wu dropping little hints about doing some remodeling to get me in there. In the end I blew out the candles Mako had lit for us and shoved Wu over, figuring he’d be easier to move than Mako, who weighs more than you’d think, looking at him. Wu made a pissed off little sleepy noise, but he didn’t wake up, and I squeezed myself in. Felt like my ass was going to topple off the damn bed, but I was there, anyhow.

I was finally there.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An epilogue.

It didn’t take all that long for Zip to track down one of the whores I’d grown up with. Zip’s got connections everywhere; if he doesn’t know then he knows a body who does, you follow? And in any case, it lets me give him some money, which he wouldn’t let me do otherwise. He doesn’t like being dependent on anyone and I can’t argue that. But I pay him enough to keep him decently fed and housed and in return, he keeps an eye out for me, finds out what I need to know.

Truth be told, he’d do it for free, just for Wu, but the two of us let it bide without saying a word. It’s just how we do things. And I like Zip - and even more importantly, I trust him - which is more than I can say about most people I know. Not long after I came to the house LoLo caught him skulking about, looking for me, and hauled him inside by his ear, gave him the third degree. And then fed him, because that’s what the man does. He told the both of us that we were lunkheads - like the neighbors wouldn’t take note of some raggedy street kid hanging about and call the cops - and told Zip to come back in a few days. When he did - and I honestly wasn’t sure if he would, but he did - LoLo had a basic looking brown delivery uniform with a cap and a badge and a delivery box with a lid, told Zip to make sure his hands and face were washed and that when he needed me to bring the box and go to the side door leading into the kitchen like he was supposed to be there instead of looking like he was casing the joint. It worked like a charm, too. He’s been doing it ever since. Like I said before, nobody in our neighborhood pays attention to the help, and even Wu himself has wandered into the kitchen once or twice while Zip’s been in the back corner where LoLo feeds the various delivery kids (they fight over who’s delivering to us, I’ve been told) and hasn’t even bothered to look twice. Mako might have recognized him - he’s good with faces and he damn well looks, not being from this neighborhood - but Zip made sure he only came when Mako was out.

I dressed down some and took the tram into the city proper to where I needed to go. No point in flashing my car around down there; that’s just asking for trouble. The address he’d given me for Laughing Lan was a few steps up from the Flower District; I was glad to see it. Still a poor neighborhood, but there were electrical poles and flowers in windows, tidy stoops and alleyways, that kind of thing. As I was hoofing it over I saw a few kids playing and while their clothes were most likely secondhand, they were clean and cared for. Definitely a better place than where I’d last seen her.

I checked the address three times before ringing the bell. A girl around Naoki’s age answered, giving me quite the look. “Excuse me,” I said, “but is Lan in?” I was hoping she’d kept her name when she left the district. Not everyone did.

The girl nodded at me, and then called inside, “Mama! There’s a person here to see you!”

“Who is it?” came a voice from inside. I knew that voice, it took everything in me not to jump at it.

“Tell her it’s Qi,” I told the girl, trying to look friendly. It’s not something I’m very good at, but I was trying.

She stared at me for a good long moment before calling back, “She says her name is Qi.”

I heard Lan coming before I saw her, but she got there quick enough. She was older than she was - well, weren’t we all? - and she’d gotten a little plumper, which looked good on her. She had on a housedress and an apron, with her hands full of flour. She hadn’t even stopped to wipe them off. She looked me up and down. “Well, I’ll be damned,” she said, and then she laughed, that big old booming laugh she’d always been known for. “It’s our little Qi, all growed up!” She shook her head, still laughing, before looking over at the girl. “Sweetling, go and put on a kettle for me, would you? And then you go on out to the courtyard, play with your brothers.” The girl obeyed, but not without giving me another look over her shoulder. “My oldest, Ting,” Lan told me, and then she gestured me inside. “Come in! Come on in! Vaatu’s rancid ass but you’re a sight for sore eyes!”

She sat me down in her little parlor while she bustled around her kitchen, washing her hands and making us some tea. The room was a bit shabby but clean and neat as a pin. She had a little statue of a dancing girl that was put in a place of honor. Nothing to the priceless treasures I’d just brought home, but I expected that it meant the world to her. I’m not so high and mighty nowadays that I can’t appreciate that. Or at least I hope I’m not.

She came in and we chatted a bit - she told me she’d seen my pictures in the paper and she’d known me right away - and she explained that she’d met a builder working across the street from the whorehouse who’d ended up falling in love with her, marrying her and bringing her home. Every whore’s happiest ending, the one that just about none of them ever got. She had three children now, two boys and a girl, and she showed me a photograph of them, clearly proud. They were nice looking kids, and I told her so.

“But Qi, tell me now. Why you here? It’s not that I ain’t glad to see you - ain’t I glad! But I can’t think, all that money of yours now, why you’d bother.” She was watching my face. “You hoping to find something out about your people? Now that you getting married and all?” She laughed at my surprise. “Naw, I can’t read none, and neither can that man of mine, but all three of our kids, they getting schooling. My Ting, she’s read the newspaper to me. Prince Wu! Will that make you a princess?”

“Royal Consort,” I said, with a bit of a grin.

“Well, la-di-dah!” and there went that laugh of hers again. I joined in. It was pretty fucking la-di-dah when it came right down to it. She put her hand on my arm, rubbing up and down on it like she was glad to see me. “So, Royal Consort Qi, what can I tell you?”

I swallowed, hard. It wasn’t like it was easy for me to ask. To give Lan credit, I think she knew. She was kind about it. Then again, she always had been. “I just…are any of them left?” I shot her a look. “Drunk Lu?”

Her face was sad. “Aw, sweetling, I’m sorry to tell you, but she left us not long after you did. Too much drink for too many years, her heart just gave up on her. We all knew she’d saved your life, she told us what happened. Not that any of us would have sold her out for doing for that damned pimp. He were bad news and deserved what he got.” She patted my knee. “She would have been tickled pink to see you now, she loved you to pieces, you know.” She thought for a bit. “Most of the rest…either they’re gone or I’ve lost touch. Whores don’t usually live too long, you know. Unless they’re like me, and they get out. And I don’t go down there no more.”

“I know you knew my Mama, Pensri.”

She gave me a look then, one I didn’t understand. “Pensri?”

“My Mama. Not that I remember her, but I knew her name.”

She leaned towards me. “Qi, baby, I don’t know what you were told or what you understood, but Pensri wasn’t your Ma. She fed you, that’s true. Her baby was born dead, saddest thing in the world, but you come along about a week later and she still had milk, so she fed you. Got herself a good deal with it, she only had to entertain the company once or twice a day between feedings. She was a nice enough girl, Pensri, but she wasn’t your Ma.” I just stared at her. I didn’t know what to say. I’d always thought she was my Mama, that teenage girl who’d shown up pregnant. Lan must have known, because she took my hands in hers. “Your mother was the Madame. I don’t know why you thought different, but I promise you, I was there. She was your Ma.”

I froze up. I didn’t even know what to say, my mind was swirling in a thousand different directions. Madame? The Madame of the house? My Mama? I felt numb.

“Oh, Qi. I thought you knew. That’s why she was always on you to keep up with the embroidering, she wanted you to have something more than a life on your back. She was saving up to send you away to school, too. She should have sent you when you were seven, but she got sick, you remember, and I think she wanted you nearby. She wanted you to get your education, she was always so proud of how smart you were. But then she died and her sister showed up and took over the house, claimed everything in it was hers, including the money set aside for you. And then she sold you off the way she did…” She reached into her pocket and fetched out a handkerchief, wiping away my tears the way she’d done when I’d been little. “Oh baby, I’m so sorry. I am so damned sorry.” She reached out her arms then, and folded me up into her, patting me as I cried.

I don’t know why I was crying, not really. What difference did it make who my Mama really was? Well, I was telling myself that, but I wasn’t feeling it. All these years, I thought I knew who I was, but I didn’t, not really. Don’t know if you know what that’s like, but it ain’t no good feeling, not when it comes down to it.

When I’d settled some, she told me the rest. How my Mama had done the one thing whores weren’t supposed to do, how she’d fallen in love with a customer, one that was married. “She was fooling herself that he was going to leave his wife for her, poor woman. They never do. I got lucky with my Yuto, but he weren’t no customer and he weren’t married, neither.” My Mama’d kept hoping he’d come around once he’d heard she was pregnant and so she’d had me, despite knowing it was a bad idea. “She went to his home a few days after you were born, taking you with her, but his wife chased her off. Not that I blame her. And he only came one more time, told her never to come near him or his family again. Ah, she was heartbroken. Poor desperate thing.”

My Mama - my real Mama - had gotten a sickness in her breast, by the time she took it to a healer it was too late for her. She’d made the arrangements with Lan and Lu to make sure I’d get sent off to school - some country boarding school in the northwest coast of the United Republic, Lan wasn’t sure why - but then her sister had shown up. “It all went to shit at that point. The house, all of it. She was no good. Your Ma, she’d been decent to work for. She was tough, but she was fair. She didn’t put up with any shit from the customers and she made sure the house was kept up and that we ate regular and had a healer if we needed it. Let us have our fun, too, knew it made for a better house that way. She wasn’t the lovey-dovey type or nothin’, don’t get me wrong. She were running a business and she had a good head for it, knew how to read and write a bit and do her sums. But it wasn’t a bad place, as far as those things go. Her sister, your auntie, she’s another story. She sold you off like that and none of us girls cottoned to it. You were our little Qi! And your Ma, she didn’t truck with nobody who sold child whores, neither. Pensri was young, but not as young as she played herself off as, and your Ma knew it.” I’d been gone for a day before Lu got it out of her where she’d sent me - got it out of her with her fists, apparently - and she and Lan and several other of the women had scattered across the district, looking for me. “Lu was the one who found you. Told you to run, too. Not that she thought anyone would care you’d done for the pervert in the room with you. She told you to run because far as your auntie was concerned, you were her property. She would’ve just sold you again, that bitch. I heard tell there was some bad business some years back that ended up with her dead and gone, though. You don't need to worry none, Qi. She can't do you nor nobody else no more harm now.”

We sat there for a time before she got up and came back with some cheap sake, filling both our tea cups full. I needed it. I think she did, too. Finally she sighed. “I’m guessing you want to know about your Daddy. Didn’t ever know his name, it’s not like the customers usually gave them. I do know he were a locksmith or maybe a watchmaker? Toymaker? Something that had to do with his hands and little tools like that. He had a shop somewheres near the theater district, if I’m remembering rightly. But that’s been years and years now, so who knows. Couldn’t tell you nothing else, and I’m sorry for it. Your Ma, though, her real name was Sayuri. That much I can tell you.”

I just stared at her. “Sayuri? Like the lily?”

She smiled. “What, you remember the song she used to sing to you? You were such a wee little bit then! The sayuri song, the one about the small lilies in spring? Only tender thing I ever seen her do for you. I don’t mean she didn’t love you. She did, it was just her way. Life hadn’t been easy for her, you know? Like so many of us there. She named you Qi, though, said that you were exceptional, that you’d bring about change. And she weren’t wrong, was she?” She laughed again. “A royal consort! What would your Ma have said! You read and write now?”

I nodded.

“That’s fine, Qi. Real good.” She patted my knee again. “And your prince? Prince Wu? He make you happy?”

“I love him,” I told her, and she leaned forward and kissed my cheek.

“That’s all your Ma ever wanted for you, that you’d be safe and happy, well away from the district. Oh, she’d be proud.”

We visited for a time and I got to meet her two sons, twins about a year or so younger than the girl. Nice kids. I wasn’t going to offer it - don’t I know about the tetchy pride poverty brings? - but I was going to see to it that they got some decent schooling on my yuan. Least I could do. Lan had always been good to me.

I’d said my goodbyes and was walking back down the street to the tram stop, my head still spinning, when I heard someone calling my name. “Princess Qi! Princess Qi!”

I turned and saw the girl, Ting, coming full pelt down the street towards me, waving something in her hand. She caught up to me, panting for all she was worth. “Take it easy there, get your breath back.”

“Mama, she said with everything else she forgot, says it went plumb out of her head. Says she had something that was yours, always kept it for you, just in case.” She handed over a sealed envelope. My name was written on it. I stared at it for a moment before looking back at her.

“Thanks. You tell her thank you for me?”

She nodded. “You a real live princess?”

“Something like that,” I told her. I reached into my pocket, fished out a little yuan. Not too much - she’d just get accused of stealing - but a bit. “Here, you get you and your brothers some candy, yeah? Share, though.” I winked at her. “Don’t tell your Mama.”

That got me a grin. “Thanks!” She took off, running just as fast as she’d came. I looked at the envelope, cheap paper, yellow with age, and ran my fingers across it before putting it carefully into my breast pocket. I wasn’t going to open it there. Taking a deep breath, I headed back towards my life.


End file.
